Japanese award winners for June announced
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Earlier today we learned that the East Japan Boxing Association Monthly Award Selection Committee had announced their award winners for the month of June, naming winners for the 3 awards.
The MVP for the month was the excellent Masahiro Suzuki (6-0, 4) [鈴木 雅弘], who impressively stopped Daishi Nagata (15-3-2, 6) [永田大士] on June 10th to become the Japanese national champion at 140lbs. Whilst his reign was a short one, vacating the title less than a week after winning it, there was no doubting that his performance was a brilliant one and he was very deserving of this award on the back of it. It's going to be really exciting to see what he does next, given he's stated his intention is to move back down and fight at his more natural weight of 135lbs.
The Fighting Sprit award was won by the hard hitting Ryoji Fukunaga (14-4, 14) [福永亮次], who retained his WBO Asia Pacific and JBC Super Flyweight titles by stopping Takahiro Fujii (12-7-1, 3) [藤井貴博] on June 21st. This was really a disappointingly easy fight for Fukunaga, though he had gone through wars in his previous two bouts, and we expect he will have another war in the near future, so it's hard to complain about him winning this award.
The Newcomer award was won by 26 year old Toru Kiyota (11-4, 8) [清田亨] following his huge upset win over Tatsuya Yanagi (17-7-2, 7) [柳達也] on June 11th. Going in to that bout Yanagi was ranked in the top 5 by the JBC who are likely to put Kiyota into the rankings following his TKO victory.
The MVP for the month was the excellent Masahiro Suzuki (6-0, 4) [鈴木 雅弘], who impressively stopped Daishi Nagata (15-3-2, 6) [永田大士] on June 10th to become the Japanese national champion at 140lbs. Whilst his reign was a short one, vacating the title less than a week after winning it, there was no doubting that his performance was a brilliant one and he was very deserving of this award on the back of it. It's going to be really exciting to see what he does next, given he's stated his intention is to move back down and fight at his more natural weight of 135lbs.
The Fighting Sprit award was won by the hard hitting Ryoji Fukunaga (14-4, 14) [福永亮次], who retained his WBO Asia Pacific and JBC Super Flyweight titles by stopping Takahiro Fujii (12-7-1, 3) [藤井貴博] on June 21st. This was really a disappointingly easy fight for Fukunaga, though he had gone through wars in his previous two bouts, and we expect he will have another war in the near future, so it's hard to complain about him winning this award.
The Newcomer award was won by 26 year old Toru Kiyota (11-4, 8) [清田亨] following his huge upset win over Tatsuya Yanagi (17-7-2, 7) [柳達也] on June 11th. Going in to that bout Yanagi was ranked in the top 5 by the JBC who are likely to put Kiyota into the rankings following his TKO victory.