Beltran vs. Pedraza & Dogboe vs. Otake – Weigh-in results

By Boxing News - 08/24/2018 - Comments

Image: Beltran vs. Pedraza & Dogboe vs. Otake - Weigh-in results

By Chris Williams: WBO lightweight champion Raymundo Beltran made weight for his title defense against Jose Pedraza, and WBO super bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe weighed in successfully for his first defense against 37-year-old Hidenori Otake for their card this Saturday night on ESPN from the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The card starts at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) weighed in at 134.6 pounds. His opponent former International Boxing Federation super featherweight champion Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs) weighed in at 134.4 pounds. Beltran vs. Pedraza is the main event on the card.

This is an important fight for the 37-year-old Beltran, as his promoters at Top Rank wants to match him against WBA champion Vasyl Lomachenko in December in a unification fight. Beltran will be a huge underdog against Lomachenko, 30, but he’ll get a good payday out of the fight.

Unbeaten Dogboe (19-0, 13 KOs) weighed in at 121 pounds, and looked in great shape. Dogboe’s opponent Otake (31-2-3, 14 KOs) weighed in at 121.4 pounds. This is Dogboe’s first defense of his WBO 122 pound title that he won last April in stopping the Top Rank promoted Jessie Magdaleno in the 11th round.

‏There hasn’t been much talk from boxing fans in the Dogboe vs. Otake fight in the United States. The fans aren’t thrilled by this fight. The basic problem is Dogboe’s management picked an easy mark in selecting #6 WBO Otake, who was beaten by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision in 2014. Otake has won his last nine fights, but he’s been beating weak opposition, which is what he’s been doing his entire career. That’s the main argument that you have to make when weighing Otake’s chances of winning this fight. Besides Otake’s weak resume of poor opposition, he’s old at 37.

It’s too bad Top Rank didn’t setup a rematch between the 23-year-old Dogboe and Jessie Magdaleno (25-1, 18 KOs), but they likely didn’t want to see their fighter’s completely destroyed with a second defeat against the Ghanaian fighter. Dogboe wore the 26-year-old Magdaleno down in the second half of the fight and wound up stopping him. It would have been fun to see Magdaleno make it to the final bell, but he couldn’t handle the speedy pace that Dogdoe had set. A rematch would still be far more interesting than seeing Dogboe beat up on the aging Otake. That’s not even sporting. Dogboe’s management needs to step him back up after this fight by putting him in with at least someone like Diego De La Hoya or Gavin McDonnell. Those would be more interesting opponents because they have talent.

Before beating Magdaleno, Dogboe had beaten Cesar Juarez, Javier Nicolas Chacon and Julian Aristule in his three previous fights. Dogboe’s fight with Juarez was an interesting one, as the fight was an exciting affair but still very one-sided. Dogboe knocked the usually touch-chinned Juarez down in in rounds 2 and 5. It was strange to see how easily Dogboe was able to hurt Juarez, because this is a tough guy who can take a lot of punishment.