{"id":494561,"date":"2026-02-21T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494561\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:29:10","slug":"rene-santiago-vs-masataka-taniguchi-official-for-april-3rd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494561\/","title":{"rendered":"Rene Santiago vs Masataka Taniguchi official for April 3rd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico\u2019s Santiago (15-4, 9 KO) picked up an interim WBO title in 2023 before falling to countryman Jonathan \u201cBomba\u201d Gonzalez in a title consolidation four months later. After a quiet 2024, he outclassed heavy hitter Shokichi Iwata at Tokyo\u2019s Kokugikan to win the real belt last March. Jumping right into a unification with WBA titlist and highly touted wunderkind Kyosuke Takami, he once again flipped the script with a split decision victory.<\/p>\n

Taniguchi (21-5, 15 KO) took out \u201cBimbito\u201d Mendez to win the WBO minimumweight title, stopped an overweight Kai Ishizawa in his inaugural defense, then got blown to bits by Melvin Jerusalem in a 2023 shocker<\/a>. He\u2019s 5-1 since, beating weak opposition but notably battling the very capable Thanongsak Simsri to a split decision in their vacant title bout.<\/p>\n

Whoever wins here will likely be tapped to face top-rated WBA contender Daiya Kira later this year.<\/p>\n

The show will also see former super bantamweight champ Marlon Tapales (41-4, 22 KO) continue down the comeback trail against faded ex-champ Yukinori Oguni (23-4-3, 9 KO). Tapales\u2019 four wins since his 2023 rout at the hands of Naoya Inoue have all come against marginal competition, and though Oguni is a cut above that chaff, it\u2019s not by much; he\u2019s 37, a decade removed from his one-fight title reign, and suffered stoppage defeats in two of his last four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico\u2019s Santiago (15-4, 9 KO) picked up an interim WBO title in 2023 before falling to countryman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,85],"class_list":["post-494561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}