After yesterday's upset with Juan Francisco Estrada defeating Brian Viloria for the WBO and WBA "super" titles at Flyweight we now see WBC champion Toshiyuki Igarashi (17-1-1, 10) attempt to avoid a similar fate when he faces former WBA Minimumweight champion Akira Yaegashi (16-3, 9) in an enticing all Japanese dust up.
Going in to the bout Igarashi is not only the WBC champion but also the Linear champion and the bigger man being a natural at Flyweight. He's not only the naturally heavier man but he also has height and reach advantages over Yaegashi as well as a being a year younger and a southpaw. Despite this however there are plenty of question marks over Igarashi who has defended his belt once.
The champion has been a professional since 2006 and has rebuilt his career well since suffering his lone defeat, a decision loss in 2008 to Tomonobu Shimizu. He has claimed both the Japanese and WBC titles at Flyweight over the past 2 and a bit years and scored notable wins over Wilbert Uicab and Sonny Boy Jaro as well as a title defense over Argentinian Nestor Daniel Narvaes (the younger brother of Omar Andres Narvaez).
Igarashi is a good boxer, he uses he feet well and can box from a distance with his sharp long shots that he bounced of Jaro's head last year. Sadly up close Igarashi can be dragged in to a war and notably in his last 4 bouts he has struggled over the finishing line as his lack of power has failed to keep opponents at bay, in fact opponents have been giving him a real nightmare time and time again. That's not to say Igarashi has no power, but it's certainly not world level power and his last stoppage came 2 years ago against Takayasu Kobayashi who had been stopped 3 times previously.
Igarashi goes into this bout as a small favourite though that's more down to the fact he's a natural Flyweight. Yaegashi, jumping up from Minimumweight however is worthy of a small bet if you can find anyone with odds available on the bout.
Like Igarashi he's a tough fighter, in fact Yaegashi may well be one of the toughest men in the sport. He's never been stopped in a career that dates back to 2005 and has featured memorable bouts against Pornsawan Porpramook and Kazuto Ioka (both FOTY candidates for their respective years). Unlike Igarashi however I feel Yaegashi prefers a war to a boxing contest and if he can cut the distance on any opponent he will give them a real nightmare with his toughness and relentless work rate which is designed to break fighters down (as he did against Porpramook).
If a fighter can keep Yaegashi at range I think they could beat him relatively easily, but keeping him at range is much easier said than done, in fact at the moment I don't think any fighter could keep Yaegashi at range.
For me I can't see Igarashi keeping Yaegashi off him and I think up close it's a no contest, Yaegashi's work rate will simply swamp the more technically skilled fighter. Igarashi may have some success but I think Yaegashi will put on a performance similar to that of Katsunari Takayama recently with his work rate just being too much for his opponent.
Prediction-Yaegashi UD12
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