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Philippines, 25 Jan 2026 |
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Will Shigeokas Go After Our Pinoy Champs or Go for the Homerun Versus Oscar Collazo? By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Tue, 19 Nov 2024  Shigeoka brothers Ginjiro (L) and Yudai (R). Oscar Collazo became unified WBA and WBO minimumweight champion yesterday by stopping former long reigning Thai WBA titlist Thammanon Niyomtrong aka Knockout CP Freshmart in the 7th round of their main support bout at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Collazo dropped Niyomtrong in round six and twice in round seven to end it. Time was 1:29. The Collazo-Niyomtrong unification fight provided support to the main event cruiserweight unification bout between Mexico's Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez and England's Chris Billam-Smith won by Ramirez via unanimous decision. The result has the effect of altering the power equation in boxing's lowest weight division as not since Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez has the minimumweight had a dominant high profile champion as Collazo. This development could also change the plans of Japanese promoters to bring back the championship and glory to Dai Nippon. Japan used to have the Shigeoka brothers - Ginjiro and Yudai- as WBC and IBF champions with potentials to reign for a long time surpassing the record of the discredited Kameda brothers. But one after the other, the Shigeokas dropped their titles to Filipino ex-champions Melvin Jerusalem and Pedro Taduran. Yudai lost his WBC crown via split decision to Jerusalem after getting decked twice in their fight last March. Four months later, Ginjiro surrendered his IBF title by TKO after getting ravaged by Taduran. The plan is to have a rematch between Yudai and Jerusalem early next year. There is no plan to pit Ginjiro against Taduran, however given how thoroughly the Filipino beat up Yudai's younger brother. Yudai may try however to avenge the gory loss of his bro as Taduran has no fight scheduled for the rest of 2024. Taduran is supposedly to make his defense against Chinese mandatory challenger Dian Xing Zhu in Jeju, South Korea this November but the bout fell through when the supposed sponsor could not put up the needed amount. But given Collazo's rise as unified champion, the Shigeokas may be emboldened to take the short cut and go for the homerun by attracting the Puerto Rican to make his first defense of the unified championship in Japan by first quarter of 2025. That means possibly foregoing with the Yudai-Jerusalem rematch and forgetting about any title fight against Taduran in the interim as MP Promotion's Sean Gibbons has a plan for an immediate unification between Collazo and Taduran early next year preferably in Saudi Arabia. The cash rich Japanese promoters would not want to be beaten to the draw on Collazo. But is any of the Shigeokas ready to take on El Pupilo, the fastest among Puerto Rican former amateur standouts to become world champion? The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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