Kazuto Ioka breathed a sigh of relief once he heard the official weights.
There wasn’t any self-concern for the reigning WBA junior bantamweight titlist. More so, Ioka was pleased when Venezuela’s Josber Perez tipped the scales well under the limit for their title fight. Both fighters weighed 52 kilograms (roughly 114.6 pounds) for their main event this Sunday on ABEMA TV from Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.
“My opponent is in good condition,” Ioka told assembled media during the post-weigh in press conference Saturday in Tokyo. “I think we can have a fair and good fight [Sunday].”
The weigh-in ceremony was far less dramatic than was the case for Ioka’s previous outing. San Antonio’s Joshua Franco was more than six pounds above the divisional limit for their June 24 rematch, having lost the WBA title at the scales before Ioka won it in the ring via twelve-round, unanimous decision.
Ioka and Franco previously fought to a twelve-round, majority draw in their attempted WBO/WBA unification bout last New Year’s Eve in this very venue which also hosted their rematch. Ioka was forced to give up the WBO belt ahead of their second fight, but claimed the WBA belt with a sound points victory which saw the 26-year-old Franco (18-2-3, 8KOs) subsequently announce his retirement.
Perez (20-3, 18KOs) still has a massive assignment ahead of him versus a potential future Hall of Famer who has won titles in four weight divisions.
Ioka is 19-2-1 in primary title fights, currently tied with Naoya Inoue (26-0, 23KOs) on Japan’s all-time list for most title fight wins (both have two additional wins each in secondary title fights). A win on Sunday will see Ioka once again move past his countryman, who pulled even after a tenth-round knockout of the Philippines’ Marlon Tapales earlier in the week to fully unify the junior featherweight division.
The original hope for Ioka’s twelfth career New Year Eve’s boxing event was to face lineal and WBC champion Juan Francisco Estrada (44-3, 28KOs) in a unification bout. Those plans collapsed over a financial dispute, which left Ioka to settle on Perez against whom he is a -1800 betting favorite according to bet365 sportsbook.
Still, the 34-year-old Osaka native (now based in Tokyo) did not get this far by overlooking any opponent.
“As is the case with every fight, sometimes things don’t always go your way,” Ioka theorized. “The first thing we will do is assess the situation and set the pace from there.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox