Shakur will be the favorite here, its also a home court advantage so this will be a big challenge for Yoshino, both boxer are undefeated so this will be a big pressure to them. Shakur seems to be more fit and active though, if you’ll see his previous matches his aggressiveness is there and a deadly punches are there as well. Who ever wins here will face another big challenge on their next match either with Haney or Loma, so better for them to do their best on this match.
Not sure if there is pressure on Shakur, yeah, he needs to win this fight because it will be in hometown, but he will be facing a somewhat unknown boxer from Japan. I'm not saying that Yoshino is not going to win, but basing on the experience alone of Shakur and Yoshino not exposed, it might be very hard for him to win in US, in my opinion. Yes, whoever wins here, is assured to face the winner of the Loma vs Haney fight. So this is in the mind of Shakur since he wanted to break into the picture and become a champion in another weight class.
Actually both are having 'noisy' names, there's just this barrier between local and international viewers. Yoshino quite had a good record for being undefeated in his local while Shakur is as well but with foreign fighters. This is where difficulty with bettors measure comes from. In general, the japanese boxer's statistics would be somehow set aside since international record is believed to be having a bigger weight not only in sports industry. But this is boxing we are talking about and anything could happen once both fighters starts in the middle of the square. Both has their own trainings and tactics to win over their opponent. So what's more likely to happen , and as we can see in this topic, Shuichiro is just the underdog in this match.
I'm not seeing it as a difficult though, for sure it's easy for bookies to make Shakur their favorite even if the Japanese is also a champion. It's been gauge on their experience and again, Yoshino might be good in Asia but the centerpiece of boxing is in the US.
Underdog means that you are treated to have low chance of winning.
And even in this community, we all know that Shakur will likely take this W.
And also means that Shuichiro Yoshino chances are not that good against the world champion who vacated his belt because of weight issues, actually, I see this fight as more of Shakur's debut and highlights before he go and pursue the generals of this division. It's no doubt already that Shakur will get defeated in this bout before he can chase titles.
No offense for the Japanese fighter but this bout looks like a good tune-up fight to prepare Shakur for a much bigger bout in the future. In short, just a stepping stone.
Yes, this will be Shakur's debut and we are eager to see him at this division, he has been telling us all that he wanted to move up at 135 lbs because that's where the challenge is, a lot of good names that he wants to fight.
Anyhow, it's going to be a win-win though for Yoshino, also his chances are slim to none, at least he will get to travel and exposed his talent in the US soil. And so even if he losses, who knows, maybe he can still get a fight there, just like Nakatani, who he beat recently. And with the emergence of Inoue in the big US market, for sure there will be a lot of Japanese too that might followed next. Similar to what Pacquiao did to many Filipino boxers when he was at his prime. At least they are given the chance with the likes of Mark Magsayo and Casimero and many more. So this might be the case for Japanese boxer in the next coming years.
And if I recall it correctly, Shakur almost got a fight with the champion directly, Devin Haney but I think Bob Arum doesn't want that for now and chose Loma instead to have the chance because it's much more profitable as people are calling for it since he got back again in the ring.
It's because that a fight has been set between Kambosos vs Loma, and at that time, George has the world title, but Loma has to back up because of his personal reason (war). So things has chance since then, Haney defeated Kambosos twice and now the champion. And so it is just right that Loma will be given the first crack by Top Rank against Haney.
Speaking of Japanese boxers that will follow Inoue's footstep, I just knew that his younger brother, Takuma Inoue, has been fighting at bantamweight already years before Inoue made his statement to climb the same weight class. Takuma got the WBC Interim title last 2018 but has been defeated a year after as he chased the WBC regular belt. But unlike Naoya, it seems that Takuma haven't got his older brothers talent.
Yes, he has a brother as well that campaigns in the bantamweight, but doesn't have the success of Inoue. Two different bread of boxers, just like the Manny, he has a brother in Bobby, but was way below the talent of Manny hehehe. We also have Glen Donaire, older brother of Nonito and we all know the story line when Nonito beat Darchinyan, it was thought to be a revenge fight and he knock him out.