AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 27
Kazuto Ioka is a Japanese professional boxer. He is a four-weight world champion, having held the WBO super-flyweight title since 2019.
Transcribed:
Including our special guests coming in from japan tonight, thank you very much for joining us another episode of neil the deal featuring neil the deal himself here on talk and fight tonight, who are we featuring tonight, hey good evening, graham, how you doing nice to see you Talking fight fans, thanks for coming out, checking out the show uh yeah we’re flying in uh, another japanese fighter.
We had one last week, uh and uh.
He seemed to uh.
You guys really liked them, so the views have been going up really well.
So we figured we’d talk a little bit about another japanese guy that i kind of like and uh.
His name is kazuto ayoka, kazuto ioka he’s basically an older uh, japanese fighter.
Uh he’s not as young as anui, but uh he’s really well known in japan.
He’S really well liked and he is a world champion.
So we’re gon na talk about him, and hopefully you guys will like the uh, like the show on him tonight.
Have you ever heard of kazuto uh ioka, graham at all, uh, you put me on the spot man i had to.
I had to google them i’ll, be honest.
I had to google him yeah, that’s all right! So uh, oh yeah, no he’s he’s uh, probably the second uh most popular boxer in japan right now and has been for a long time he’s had quite a long career and he’s been very, very successful.
So, okay, guys, let’s just go over a little bit of stuff about mr ioka all right, so he was born – may 24th 1989 in saki, osaka, japan, and that makes him 32 years old right, so he’s fought in four weight divisions.
This is interesting, graham you’ll, like this uh mini flyweight mini flyweight, which i guess would be straw weight, the lowest uh mini flyweight, uh, light flyweight, flyweight and superfly weight all right.
So i know superfly weights 115 pounds, so mini flyweight must be 105 pounds.
I believe it’s the same as straw weight.
I guess the lowest uh the lowest weight class that that there is so that’s very interesting, but he fights primarily now in super flyweight uh.
His career started in 2009, his pro career, he is actively a present fighter and he presently is ranked as the world’s fourth best active super featherweight in the world by box rack and third by ring magazine so he’s right up there uh.
He is.
This is an excellent, excellent stat.
I never.
I never knew this, but he is the first japanese boxer to become a four weight class world champion pretty cool eh.
That is.
I did not know that first japanese boxer to do that.
So congratulations at kazuto.
That’S awesome and uh.
He presently holds the wbo super flyweight title which he won in 2019, so he is a world champion as we speak.
He started fighting at uh, 13 years old and apparently his uncle.
I i had heard of his uncle when i, when i thought about his name uh.
I remember his uncle a little bit.
Just freezing the name by his uncle is hiroki hiroki ioka and he was a world champion in the flyweight and minimum flyweight division back in the 80s and the 90s.
So i can just remember hearing his name kind of them talking about him and this and that so it’s kind of in the family, because his father uh is also training him as a when he was an amateur and still trains him now as a professional and I’M sure his uncle helps out too.
So i guess it’s like you know all in the family over there they’re all working together right, which is really cool, so he had a really good amateur career uh.
He had 105 bouts, all totaled of which he won 95 bouts of those 105 and he apparently had 64 knockouts in those 95 wins.
He only had 10 losses as an amateur.
So that’s that’s a phenomenal amateur career and he won some uh tournaments and stuff.
We’Ll go over that guys check this out when he was younger.
He won uh six national high school tournaments, he uh in 2008.
He reached the semifinals of the kings cup, which is an amateur tournament held in thailand.
Apparently it’s a really big tournament.
Amateur tournament.
The king’s cup, they call it in thailand and uh.
He also won four consecutive national sports festival.
Uh came first place in the boxing division of that, and i understand that that is very big in japan as well.
The national sports festival, it’s a it’s an amateur festival; it circumferences uh everything from ice hockey and skating to swimming, to golf to baseball to football.
It’S huge! It’S like a really really big thing, so he competed in the boxing um back in the day there when he was an amateur and and did really well, he won four consecutive times in the boxing division, so i believe he was in in uh in light flyweight When he was when he was boxing so very interesting, now he’s uh he’s a really like i’ve.
Seen him fight a couple of times he’s a really really good fighter.
Uh he works.
He works the ring really well.
I noticed that, like he seems to he seems to stay in the middle of the ring and he keeps his opponents once he gets them going.
He pushes him into the corners and he’s he’s got a really good, uh, really good combinations.
He throws really good combinations and uh good body shots he’s a good body.
Puncher and uh he’s he’s basically uh.
As i say, a well-rounded fighter.
He’S he’s well he’s he’s got everything going for him.
Basically, i would say you know what i mean.
He’S got a pretty good job and uh.
He throws he’s not the he’s, not the hardest puncher, but he can knock guys out.
Put it that way.
He he’s he’s we’re gon na go over.
His pro totals now and you’ll see what uh, what that’s all about.
So his pro totals are like this: he has 28 bouts under his belt 28 votes of which he has 26 wins, and he only has two losses and he has the 15 kos out of the 26 wins.
So that’s almost uh, that’s a little more than 50 percent, probably closer to the 60 mark.
So you know he’s he can he can definitely knock you out um.
I noticed with these lighter fighters.
You know these guys in the in the in the light divisions.
They don’t have a lot of knockout power because they’re, just not that big.
You know what i mean they throw a lot of punches.
You know they throw a lot of combinations, they they definitely get involved both of them and they they seem to have endless energy.
If you know what i mean, they don’t uh, they don’t tire as easily as the bigger guys but um they don’t.
They don’t necessarily always have big knockout numbers down in the uh in the super flyweight division, bantamweight stuff like that, so so uh, let’s just go over a little more of his pro totals.
He turned pro in 2009 uh.
He won his first five fights and then in october 2010 he won his first title, which was the japanese light flyweight title.
So that was a a title within japan, the japanese lightweight title uh february 2011.
He won the wbc mini flyweight title and february 2012.
He won the wba, uh mini flyweight title, so he has the wbc and the wba december 2012.
He won the wba light flyweight title and in april 2015 he won the wba flyweight title, so he started.
Uh started winning some world titles later on.
In his career september 2018 he won the wbc silver super flyweight title and in june 2019, which he is presently uh still holding.
He won the wbo super flyweight title.
So he’s won.
Quite a number, like i say, he’s the first japanese fighter right graham to win in uh four weight class divisions uh.
I guess it would be mini flyweight, uh, light flyweight, flyweight and super flyweight right.
So he’s basically one in every division that he’s fought in, which is pretty uh, pretty amazing.
It is now in his most uh in his most recent bout guys he beat a countryman that he’s uh kind of his his new nemesis.
I guess they would call it uh and it was a really big fight in japan.
I understand in japan, it was, it was really big uh.
He fought a guy named kosei, tanaka, kosei, tanaka and uh.
He was he’s touted as like the the new up-and-comer guy.
In japan and um and uh ioka ended up koi’ing uh tanaka in the eighth round, and that was uh december 31st.
New year’s eve 2020.
That was his last fight, so he wasn’t even he was the champion and he wasn’t even favored.
I understand in that fight and uh.
He pulled it off.
You know what i mean graham pulled it off in front of the hometown fans.
I watched that fight and i would suggest if you guys want to see him fight.
That was a that was.
That was probably his his best fight is, you know the biggest fight that he’s been in to date, um, because tanaka was undefeated at the time he’s 15-0 right and uh.
He was also a three-time three-weight champion as well.
So i mean tanaka is coming up as the big you know, the guy who’s gon na you know basically be the the the guy going forward because uh ioka has um.
You know he’s 32.
.
I i know that he uh he was contemplating retirement back in 2017, but he decided to keep going, but we’ll see what happens in the future with him uh i would.
I would probably think that you know he would probably want to have uh some sort of a title: fight against uh, juan francisco estrada who has the wbc and wba titles right he’s.
Definitely he’s a title holder, so he’s going to want to be fighting the title.
The other title holders or something of that sort.
I can’t really see him going down like taking guys lower lower than that right now, there’s also a really good super flyweight, a filipino guy.
Graham there we go with the filipinos uh.
His name is gerwin and castles and casias and cassias.
I guess it is german and cassius and uh apparently he’s a he’s.
The uh he’s the ibf super flyweight champion, so maybe there’s a chance that uh ioka will fight him.
They haven’t really said anything much.
I guess they don’t have anything set for him as of yet, but those would be some of the things i would think you guys might want to look out for with ioka in the uh 2021 later this year or 2022.
, now notable fights.
If you wanted to check out any of his fights that that tanaka fight the kosei tanaka fight was fantastic, that was the most recent one uh.
He also fought a really good fight in the ashton, palatite fight and the mc williams arroyo fight was really good too guys, so any of those fights if you’re interested in checking out uh checking out uh kazuto anoka ioka uh.
Those would be the three fights i would probably take a look at right there.
So hopefully you enjoyed the episode on kazuto.
I certainly did i i learned a lot about them and uh.
I had a good time.
These japanese fighters are interesting.
We don’t get to see them much because they’re always fighting in japan.
You know there was one on the undercard uh during the uh alvarez fight on saturday, um yeah or something his name was matayama or something like that [ Music ].
We definitely are seeing more and more japanese fighters uh coming over to north america to fight for sure, oh yeah, absolutely they’re uh, like i say these guys are he’s a world champion so uh, i’m sure they’re gon na be doing these fights uh in the united States coming up and uh we’ll be we’ll i’ll be looking forward to seeing them.
You know i’ll be looking forward to see any of the japanese fighters.
I like them.
Yeah they fight with a lot of heart.
You can tell they never they have that.
Never give up style.
I like that.
You know good stuff, a lot of heart all right guys.
Well, thanks a lot for coming out watching the show really appreciate it.
The likes the shares the subscriptions all that stuff and the notification bell banging.
If you want to see me around seven o’clock, uh thanks a lot graham for having me out – and i guess we’ll see you tomorrow – night uh, you got it all right, guys, take care talk to you soon!
There are no reviews yet.