WBC champ Wanheng to fight Fukuhara
Title showdown to be held in Korat on Nov 24
>> TOKYO: Japan’s Tatsuya Fukuhara will challenge Thai champion Wanheng Menayothin for the WBC minimumweight title in Nakhon Ratchasima on Nov 24, his camp announced yesterday.
It will be the second crack at a world title for Fukuhara, 28, who was beaten by compatriot Ryuya Yamanaka in the first defence of his WBO minimumweight belt in August.
The 31-year-old Wanheng has won all 48 of his career bouts, 17 of them by knockout, and has defended the WBC minimumweight title seven times.
Speaking at a press conference in Kumamoto, 10th-ranked Fukuhara said, “It will be a tough fight but this will be my last chance and I want to give it everything I have.”
Wanheng last fought in August when he comfortably beat Indonesia’s Jack Amisa with a unanimous decision in a warm-up bout in Chon Buri.
His previous championship fight took place in June in Rayong where he secured an easy points win over Omari Kimweri of Australia.
The Thai, known in his country as Wanheng Kaiyanghadaogym (Five-Star Grilled Chicken Gym), is one of the Kingdom’s only three world boxing champions at the moment along with WBA minimumweight title-holder Knockout CP Freshmart and WBC super-flyweight king Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.
FURY PROMISES BIG FIGHTS
Britain’s troubled former heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury said on Thursday he will return to the ring in April and is looking forward to “three big fights” in 2018.
The 29-year-old has not fought since his shock defeat of Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine to win the WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles in November 2015.
Fury had his licence suspended last October when he admitted he was using cocaine and struggling with depression, and last week said he would not apply for a new one.
But he wrote on Twitter on Thursday that he would “be ready to fight in April 2018 in a great fight”.
He added he would then take part “in the summer in a mega fight” and return again at the “back end” of the year.
Fury, who t wice postponed rematches with Klitschko, had hoped to return to the ring earlier this year but that plan was scuppered when his UK Anti-Doping hearing was adjourned in May.
He was at ringside last month when his cousin Hughie Fury came up short in his bid to take the WBO heavyweight title from champion Joseph Parker in Manchester.
AIBA BOSS WU SUSPENDED
Wu Ching-ko, the Taiwanese chief of amateur boxing’s governing body Aiba, has been temporarily suspended in an ongoing power struggle involving accusations of financial mismanagement.
Aiba’s disciplinary commission revealed the move in a statement.
“Wu was found to be in violation of a number of the boxing association’s statutes and disciplinary codes,” the commission said in the statement. “President Wu has made important commercial agreements and taken key decisions without the EC’s [executive committee] approval. He has signed and taken on several loans.”
Wu, who won a recent court battle against Aiba’s executive committee, said he planned to appeal.
His rivals say he has racked up debts worth 15 million Swiss francs (approximately 516 million baht). But Wu has insisted the body is financially healthy, accusing his detractors of mounting “a military coup”.