The first title defense of the post-Naoya Inoue era is now on hold.
A rib injury has forced Takuma Inoue to postpone his planned WBA bantamweight title defense versus former IBF junior bantamweight titleholder Jerwin Ancajas. The two were due to meet atop a November 15 show from the famed Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, but the loss of the aforementioned title fight forced a rescheduling of the entire event.
“Takuma Inoue suffered a fractured rib in sparring,” promoter Hideyuki Ohashi confirmed Friday. “The November 15th event has been postponed.”
No new date was yet offered for what will remain a title fight doubleheader. The show will also include WBA flyweight titlist Artem Dalakian (22-0, 15KOs)—an Azerbaijan-born boxer who is based in Ukraine—versus Kurashiki’s Seigo Yuri Akui (18-2-1, 11KOs).
Inoue (18-1, 4KOs) was to make the first defense of the WBA 118-pound title in a twelve-round, unanimous decision over Liborio Solis on April 8 in Tokyo.
The win saw the 27-year-old from Yokohama become a major titlist on his second attempt. His lone career defeat came in a failed November 2019 title challenge of then-unbeaten WBC beltholder Nordine Oubaali. Inoue fought once more at bantamweight before he moved up to junior featherweight while older brother Naoya Inoue (25-0, 22KOs) proceeded with his campaign to fully unify the bantamweight division.
The mission was completed last December 13, but the older Inoue relinquished all four titles one month later—and only after Takuma was in a guaranteed position to challenge for one of the belts. The younger Inoue promptly returned to bantamweight to fill the WBA vacancy, three months prior to Naoya’s one-sided, eighth-round knockout of Stephen Fulton to win the WBC and WBO junior featherweight titles on July 25 in Tokyo.
Ancajas (34-3-2, 23KOs) returned to the win column with a fifth-round knockout of Wilner Soto on June 24 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The feat ended a two-fight losing skid, both at the hands of Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who claimed the IBF junior bantamweight title and subsequently defended both in separate unanimous decision wins over the 31-year-old southpaw from Panabo City, Philippines.
The confidence-restoring win over Soto was enough for Ancajas—who is promoted by Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions—to magically appear in the WBA bantamweight rankings in time to enter talks for a fight versus Inoue. A deal was struck relatively quickly, as the two reached terms in late July and waited on a fight date.
Inoue’s title win came one month ahead of Australia’s Jason Moloney’s May 13 victory over Vincent Astrolabio to win the WBO bantamweight belt.
Tijuana’s Alexandro Santiago picked up the vacant WBC title in a July 29 lopsided defeat over legendary former four-division champion Nonito Donaire. The fourth and final vacancy was filled on August 12, when Emmanuel Rodriguez pitched a 12-round shutout over badly outgunned Melvin Lopez to become a two-time IBF bantamweight titleholder.
It remains unclear how long the event will be delayed, and if it still happens this year. Naoya Inoue is confirmed to put his WBC/WBO junior featherweight titles at stake versus unified WBA/IBF titleholder Marlon Tapales in their undisputed showdown recently confirmed for December 26 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
By Jake Donovan