WBA world junior lightweight champ Takashi Uchiyama will defend his title for the eighth time this New Year?s Eve?
?It?s dog eat dog ? the law of the jungle!??When Worlds Collide
WBA world junior lightweight champ Takashi Uchiyama will defend his title for the eighth time this New Year?s Eve against fellow Japanese Daiki Kaneko over a scheduled 12 rounds at the Ota-City Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan.
Thirty-four-year-old Uchiyama is an eight-year pro. Undefeated (20-0-1, 17 KOs), ?KO Dynamite? won the title by stopping Juan Carlos Salgado by 12th-round TKO in 2010. He fought twice in 2012, drawing against Michael Farenas in July and stopping Bryan Vasquez by eighth-round TKO in December, and once this year, stopping Jaider Parra by fifth-round KO in May.
Twenty-five-year-old Kaneko is an eight-year ring veteran (19-2-3, 12 KOs) who fought three times in 2012, stopping Seiichi Okada by eighth-round TKO in May, Michiya Sato by second-round KO in September, and Ryota Kajiki by sixth-round TKO in December, and twice this year, stopping Kyohei Tamakoshi by ninth-round TKO in April and Mitsuya Omura by first-round KO in August. He suffered back-to-back losses in 2007, losing to Nobuo Maruyama by unanimous decision in September, and stopped by Mitsuya Omura by fifth-round TKO in December. Kaneko drew against Hero Bando in 2009, Orion Takuya in 2010, and Kyosuke Yoshida in 2011.
?In Japan,? Bill Murray once observed, ?you feel like a joke is being played on you the entire time you?re there.? Will this apply to Uchiyama on December 31? Not likely. After all, he?s a native son. True, so is Kaneko. But good as he is (and he?s mighty good), he?s got another thing coming if he thinks Uchiyama is a hoochie mama there to do the hoochie coochie.
Unlike Minnie the Moocher, that red-hot hoochie coocher, Uchiyama doesn?t have a heart as big as a whale. But he does have a fist like one, and he?ll use it to stop his compatriot by the middle rounds.
