By Jeff Aranow: WBA World bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue (16-0, 14 KOs) weighed in at 118 pounds on Saturday for his fight against Juan Carlos Payano (20-1, 9 KOs) on Sunday night on October 7 in the quarterfinals of the World Boxing Super Series bantamweight tournament at the Arena in Yokohama, Japan. The 34-year-old Payano weighed in at 117.5 pounds.
Inoue, 25, will be making his first defense of his WBA ‘regular’ 118 lb. title last May in stopping champion Jamie McDonnell in the 1st round. That fight was supposed to have been a competitive one, but it turned out to be a mismatch. Inoue has won world titles in three divisions since turning pro in 2012.
In an odd move, Inoue left the super flyweight division in a hurry after defending his WBO title without facing WBC champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, IBF champion Jerwin Ancajas or WBA champion Khalid Ancajas. There were a lot of fighters at 115 that Inoue could have fought besides those fighters. Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez, Carlos Cuadras, Juan Francisco Estrada and McWilliams Arroyo were all fighters that Inoue failed to fight before leaving the super flyweight division. The boxing world wants to see if Inoue will stay around the bantamweight division to fight the best fighters or if he’ll vacate his belt and move up soon to super bantamweight without fighting the talented fighters in the division.
Former IBO/WBA bantamweight champion Payano has won his last three fights since losing his titles to Rau-Shee Warren in June 2016. Payano had previously beaten Payano in their first fight by a 12 round split decision in 2015, but the second time around, he came up short in losing a 12 round majority decision.
In other weights on Sunday’s card, WBO World light welterweight champion Kiyrl Relikh (22-2, 19 KOs) weighed in at 140 pounds for his title defense against former IBF 140 pound champion Eduard Troyanovsky (27-1, 24 KOs) in their quarterfinal fight in the World Boxing Super Series light welterweight tournament. Troyanovsky weighed in at 139.25 lbs.
Relikh, 28, defeated Rances Barthelemy by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last March to claim the vacant World boxing Association ‘regular’ light welterweight title. The heavy-handed Relikh will be making his first defense against the 38-year-old Troyanovsky, whose only career loss is a 1st round knockout to Julius Indongo in December 2016. Relikh has two losses to Ricky Burns and Barthelemy.
WBC light flyweight champion Ken Shiro (13-0, 7 KOs) weighed in at 107,75 lbs. For his title defense against Milan Melindo (37-3, 13 KOs). The 30-year-old Melindo weighed in at 107.5 pounds. Melindo initially weighed in at 109 in coming in one pound over the 108 light flyweight limit. On the second weigh-in attempt, Melindo weighed in at 107.5 after an hour and a half of sweating off the weight.