WBO champion of the Junior Flyweight division, Jonathan Gonzalez suffered an unfortunate and untimely bout of pneumonia that will leave him too weakened to fight WBC & WBA champion Kenshiro Teraji, even if he recovers on time. As a result, the planned unification fight between the two world champions hangs in the balance as Teraji searches for a new opponent.
The unification bout was slated to be held at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo on April 8th, but Jonathan Gonzalez (27-3-1, 14 KO’s) suddenly becoming ill due to pneumonia – which is regarded as a serious illness – has now changed the outlook of the event which will force Kenshiro Teraji (20-1, 12 KO’s) to find a new opponent. Doubts now linger as to which viable contender can step up to face Teraji.
The Junior Flyweight division, though underrated, is not exactly devoid of quality fighters, but it is unlikely that any of the top 10 or 15 fighters in the division will be available to fight. Most of those fighters have likely not trained enough to be put into an instant title fight, while others will be occupied with their own fights. There is a small chance that the latter type of opponents will be available if they have gone through training camp in the past month for more than a week, but in any case it is not expected Teraji will face a quality opponent. Even if that would be the case, the opponent will likely not have had the required amount of training to stand a legitimate chance against the Japanese champion.
Though there is a good chance that Kenshiro Teraji will no longer feature on the fight card, plenty of other available fights can attract attention. Particularly, the match between Featherweights Reiya Abe (24-3-1, 10 KO’s) and Kiko Martinez (44-11-2, 31 KO’s) offer plenty in the way of entertainment. Naoya Inoue’s younger brother, Takuma Inoue (17-1, 4 KO’s), is also certain to be an entertaining match as he fights for the vacant WBA Bantamweight belt – which had been relinquishes by his brother Naoya when he moved up to Super Bantamweight – against Venezuelan contender Liborio Solis (35-6-1, 16 KO’s).
In addition, Tenshin Nasukawa, a renowned kickboxer who’s best known outside of Japan for being Floyd Mayweather’s first exhibition opponent, will be making his professional boxing debut on the fight card and will be the main eventing on the evening due to his fame within the country (generated through his kickboxing career).
Kenshiro Teraji, who first conquered the WBC title as early as 2017, would have fought in his second unification fight (in a row) following his victory over former WBA Junior Flyweight champion, Hiroto Kyoguchi (16-1, 11 KO’s) in November of 2022. Teraji had held onto the title for approximately four years before losing it in a brutal stoppage loss to fellow Japanese fighter Masamichi Yabuki (15-4, 14 KO’s) in 2021. Teraji later avenged his loss against Yabuki a year later in March of 2022 to recapture his WBC title, which he went on to put on the line in his November unification fight against Kyoguchi.
Puerto Rican Jonathan Gonzalez would have been fighting his third Japanese opponent before he caught pneumonia, and currently boasts a record of 1-1 against fighters of Japanese origin. He first received a world title opportunity as a Flyweight against former WBO Flyweight champion, Kosei Tanaka (18-1, 10 KO’s), in 2019 but capitalized when he gained another opportunity to win the WBO’s Junior Flyweight title by defeating Elwin Soto in 2021. He has since gone on to defend his two times, both in 2022.
Despite Jonathan Gonzalez’ unfortunate illness, the event that will be held at the Ariake Arena within just two weeks will likely not suffer too much from the absence of the highly-anticipated unification bout at 108 lbs, and Kenshiro Teraji can still look forward to putting hard-earned weeks into training to good use, even if against a lesser opponent.
