Despite Jonathan Gonzalez’ forced withdrawal out of his unification match with Kenshiro Teraji due to suffering pneumonia, Teraji has quickly found a suitable opponent in Anthony Olascuaga, an American prospect who has a record of just five wins — with three coming by way of knockout. Their fight, held at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, will be scheduled for twelve rounds as originally planned.
Despite his low-number of fights, Anthony Olascuaga (5-0, 3 KOs) is already considered the 26th best Junior Flyweight on the planet, and the best American Junior Flyweight overall. He enjoyed this distinction due to his previous five matches which saw him repeatedly fighters within or just outside the top 150 of the division. With Olascuaga managing to stop or knockout three opponents with vastly more experience than him, the 24-year old prospect now finds himself fighting for not just his first world title, but titles with WBA and WBC champion Kenshiro Teraji (20-1, 12 KO’s) currently being unified within the weight division.
With Olascuaga’s team not having shied away in making him fight challenging opponents from the onset of his professional career, he will now be fasttracked in a world title fight in just his sixth fight. There are clear dangers attached to stepping in on short notice against an opponent such as Kenshiro Teraji, but Anthony Olascuaga is no less of a threat given he has been preparing for another match prior to being picked as Jonathan Gonzalez’ (27-3-1, 14 KO’s) replacement.
The main event will feature former Mayweather exhibition opponent and famous (in Japan) kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa — who will be headlining the show together with his opponent Yuki Yonaha (12-4-1, 8 KO’s). Given Nasukawa’s pedigree as a kickboxer — and to lesser degree MMA, he is now stepping into the professional ranks of boxing after years of rigorous training and a fair amount of exhibition bouts.
Kenshiro Teraji’s fight with Anthony Olascuaga will be included on the main card of the event, held at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. The card will further feature another world title bout between Takuma Inoue (17-1, 4 KO’s) — younger brother of former undisputed Bantamweight champion, Naoya Inoue (24-0, 21 KO’s) — and Liborio Solis (35-6-1, 16 KO’s), as well as a pivotal fight between contenders Kiko Martinez (44-11-2, 31 KO’s) and Reiya Abe (24-3-1, 10 KO’s).
