It's not often a Japanese fighter has much success in Thailand, in fact the only victory in a world title fight by a Japanese born fighter in Thailand was Koki Eto's recent victory over Kompayak Porpramook earlier this year.
Despite the awful record of Japanese fighters in Thailand I've got a feeling we may see history repeat it's self this weekend as former 2-time world champion Nobuo Nashiro (19-5-1, 13) travels to Nakhon Ratchasima to face Thai veteran Denkaosan Kaovichit (61-3-1, 26), himself a former world champion, in a battle for the WBA interim Super Flyweight title.
Although many of those outside of the East haven't seen, or even heard of these two men both have been genuine world champions. Unfortunately both are now faded fighters and neither man has looked to be at their best in several years.
With both men looking ton be notably on the slide it's fair to say that I'm siding with the fighter who has shown more in recent fights, that is Nashiro.
The 31 year old from Japan claimed his first world title back in 2006 when he defeated Martin Castillo in his 8th bout for the WBA Flyweight title. Although he lost the title just a few fights later being beaten by Alexander Munoz he would later regain the belt beating domestic rival Kohei Kono for the belt.
Unfortunately after winning the title for the second time Nashiro's form has been less than stellar going 7-4-1 and 1-4-1 in world title bouts. Despite this he did look very good in his most recent loss dropping a very close decision to Tepparith Kokietgym in a fight that seemed to suggest there was more left in the sport for Nashiro, who had been talking about retirement prior to the fight.
At his best Nashiro was a limited fighter but yet a nightmare. Teak tough, hard working with more than respectable power and solid work rate. Had it not been for his somewhat slow hands and relatively stationary feet he'd have been a genuinely nasty guy to fight.
Nashiro's opponent, Kaovichit has an excellent record on paper with an incredible winning % however like many Thai's he has stacked his record with victories over limited foes collecting paydays, in fact he's already fought 3 times this year.
At his best Kaovichit was himself a bit of a nightmare to fight. He started his career with 20 straight victories before fighting Eric Morel and losing via an 11th round TKO in what was Kaovichit's first foray into world level.
Since the loss to Morel, Kaovichit would go on to claim the WBA Flyweight title defeating Takefumi Sakata and defend it twice beating both Hiroyuki Hisataka and Daiki Kameda before losing a rematch to Kameda. Unfortunately the Kameda fights appear to be the beginning of the end for Kaovichit at world level and he's only fought once more in "world" level action suffering an opening round blast out defeat at the hands of Luis Concepcion in 2010.
Although the loss to Concepcion was less than 3 years ago Kaovichit has managed to bank himself 11 subsequent victories, albeit at a much, much lower level.
Going on their last losses it's fair to say that Nashiro showed he could still compete at the world level whilst Kaovichit's punch resistance was certainly not what it once was. With this in mind I've got to favour Nashiro who I expect will have more than enough to defeat the 37 year old Kaovichit by stoppage late in the bout.
Prediction-Nashiro TKO10
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