November 27 promises to be a fascinating evening of boxing. The card takes place at The Hulu Theatre, inside Madison Square Garden. While the main focus will be on Teofimo Lopez, there’s also a fight for the vacant IBF super featherweight title between Azinga Fuzile and Kenichi Ogawa.
Boxers from all over the world want to fight at Madison Square Garden. This title fight sees a South African face a Japanese boxer. It’s the latter who hopes that he can finally win a world title and keep it.
Fuzile has a professional record of 15 wins and just one loss with nine wins coming inside the distance. The 25-year-old South African made his pro debut seven years ago. It took him just five fights to win the South African featherweight title and in 2016 became the WBC Youth World featherweight belt.
More titles followed when moving up to super lightweight but also his only defeat. That was at the hands of Shavkat Rakhimov in September 2019 who stopped him in seven rounds. That was a controversial loss with the Rakhimov corner accused of using smelling salts. An appeal against the loss was unsuccessful.
All his fights have took place in South Africa, but last year Fuzile (below) took on Martin Ward in Nevada.
This time he won in seven rounds, knocking his opponent down twice. This crack against Ogawa for the vacant IBF title was due to go to Rakhimov but he withdrew due to injury. Now Fuzile has the chance to become champion. If he does, you can bet a future defence may well be against the only man to beat him.
Betting on boxing is an exciting thing to indulge in. The next punch thrown may well be the one that ends the fight and wins you some dollars. There will be plenty of odds available for this world title fight.
The same applies to the main event between Lopez and Kambosos with 2. That’s the kind of odds New Yorkers will be taking when sports betting is finally legalized.
First though, he must get past Kenichi Ogawa. The Japanese boxer has a pro record of 25 wins, a no-contest and one defeat. He’s 33 years-old and made his professional debut four years later than his opponent.
His one professional loss came nine years ago. He lost to Yuki Miyoshi in his ninth fight. They met again the following year and Ogawa knocked him out in the first round. Ogawa won 11 fights in a row, all inside the distance.
He stretched his unbeaten run to 14 fights before taking on Tevin Farmer in 2017 for the same title he is challenging for later this month. Ogawa won the title on points but wasn’t champion for long. He failed a drugs test and the bout was declared a no-contest.
Since then, Ogawa (above) has won three fights and drawn with Joe Noynay in a bout for the WBO Asia-Pacific super featherweight title.
This is a fight we nearly saw two years ago. The pair were due to meet in an eliminator, but Ogawa pulled out due to an injury. That’s what led to Fuzile facing and being beaten by Rakhimov.
Hopefully, both boxers will keep safe over the next month so this fight for the vacant IBF super-featherweight title can go ahead.