Former world champions tackle a weighty issue in Japan

Former world champions Yukinori Oguni and Marlon Tapales face off this Friday, April 3 in a high-quality catchweight collision. The fight features as the chief support for Rene Santiago’s headline bout opposite Masataka Taniguchi. The iconic Korakuen Hall in Tokyo will host the event. There is no UK broadcast scheduled at press time.

Read on for my Oguni vs Tapales predictions.

Oguni vs Tapales Odds

The home fighter is unfancied at 6/1 while Tapales is backed at 1/8. The draw, a result that Oguni has experienced three times in his career, is 14/1.

Oguni vs Tapales Fight Preview

This is a fine clash tucked away on a card that is sadly not currently scheduled for a UK airing. It pits two former world champions against each other at a time of potential flux in the super bantamweight division.

Undisputed champion Naoya Inoue, arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, defends his titles against fellow Japanese superstar Junto Nakatani on May 2. Win or lose, ‘Kaibutsu’ is expected to head up to featherweight in the aftermath. If he has beaten Nakatani on his way out of the 122lb class, that means four title belts being spread to the wind.

Tapales is in plum position to decide the destination of one of them. The Filipino boxer is ranked in the top four by the WBO, IBF and WBC. Nakatani is above him in each bracket but that either means Tapales getting a crack at a vacant belt if Inoue beats his countryman, or a shot at Junto if he does not.

This enviable outlook is challenged slightly by the events of Thursday’s weigh-in. This fight has been set at a catchweight a pound-and-a-half above the super bantamweight marker of 122lb. But Tapales missed weight before the fight with reports at press time disagreeing on whether he made weight on the second attempt or an agreement was reached with Oguni and his team.

Either way, that is a career-threatening failure from Tapales. World titles are within reach but super bantamweight may no longer be a viable option for the 34-year-old. While Tapales has held world championships at bantamweight as well as super bantamweight, it does get harder to make weight as an athlete gets older. Maybe, no matter the result, he will have to do his fighting at featherweight from now on.

Oguni is a former IBF super bantamweight titlist in his own right. But unlike Tapales, who lost his most recent belts to Inoue at the tail end of 2023, it has been almost a decade since Oguni wore world gold. The Japanese beat Jonathan Guzman for the IBF crown in December 2016 and then lost it to countryman Ryosuke Iwasa the following September.

The 37-year-old has gone 4-2-2 since that defeat, without beating anyone of world-level renown. A marked contrast to how Tapales has dealt with his 10th-round TKO loss to Inoue just over two years ago.

Tapales has four wins with three stoppages since running into ‘The Monster’. Admittedly, none of the victories have come over top-tier opposition. But Marlon has shown less signs of rust than his opponent at Korakuen. 

The weight-making struggles could level the playing field, perhaps. But this feels like Tapales’ fight to lose. Whether his body allows him to reap the rewards, in this division at least, remains to be seen.

Oguni vs Tapales Full Card

Rene Santiago vs Masataka Taniguchi

Yukinori Oguni vs Marlon Tapales

Tsukuru Midorikawa vs Hisashi Kato

Shinobu Charlie Hosokawa vs Ryusei Kurobe

Kenshin Ogami vs Jonathan Galetto

Oguni vs Tapales Prediction

I think Tapales will have too much quality for his man, even with the weight. Oguni is no longer the fighter that snared Guzman’s world belt in a decade-old upset. Tapales is still vicious and has been fighting regularly since succumbing to Inoue.

I’m backing Tapales to pick up a relatively straightforward win at 1/8.

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