Puerto Rican unified world champion\u00a0Ren\u00e9 Santiago\u00a0and former Japanese titleholder\u00a0Masataka Taniguchi\u00a0made weight and are ready for their showdown this Friday, April 3, at\u00a0Korakuen Hall. Santiago weighed in at 107.8 pounds and Taniguchi at 107.1, both comfortably within the junior flyweight limit (108 lbs).<\/p>\n
El Chulo (15-4, 9 KOs) will defend his WBO and WBA titles in his third straight fight in Japan. Santiago captured the WBO 108 pound belt in March 2025 by unanimous decision over\u00a0Shokichi Iwata and unified with the WBA after a split decision win against\u00a0Kyosuke Takami\u00a0in December to become the unified champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a disciplined camp from start to finish, and I\u2019m arriving at this fight exactly the way a world champion should,\u201d said Santiago. \u201cI know what it means to defend these titles in Japan, and I\u2019m fully prepared for the challenge in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taniguchi (21-5, 15 KOs), a former WBO minimumweight champion, will attempt to regain his position at home. He held the belt from 2021 to 2023 after stopping Puerto Rican\u00a0Wilfredo M\u00e9ndez, before losing it by knockout to Filipino\u00a0Melvin Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
The co-feature is also set. Filipino\u00a0Marlon Tapales\u00a0weighed 123 3\/4 pounds, just 40 grams over the limit, while Japanese\u00a0Yoshimi Koguni\u00a0weighed 123 1\/2 pounds. Koguni\u2019s team approved the difference, and the fight will proceed as scheduled.<\/p>\n
This event is the 12th edition Treasure Boxing, Tokyo annual boxing show, promoted by former world champion\u00a0Masayuki Ito. The full card will be broadcast in Puerto Rico on\u00a0WAPA Deportes\u00a0and in Latin America via\u00a0ESPN KnockOut, starting at 4:00 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n
Tokyo is ready for a Friday night of explosive action: world titles on the line and high stakes fights that promise fireworks from start to finish.<\/p>\n
Weights from Japan:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rene Santiago 107.8 pounds\u00a0<\/p>\n
Masataka Taniguchi 107.1 pounds<\/p>\n
Marlon Tapales 123 3\/4 pounds(40g over) Yoshimichi Oguni 123 1\/2 pounds (56kg)<\/p>\n
Tsukuru Midorikawa 153 3\/4 pounds <\/p>\n
Hisashi Kato 153 1\/4 pounds\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puerto Rican unified world champion\u00a0Ren\u00e9 Santiago\u00a0and former Japanese titleholder\u00a0Masataka Taniguchi\u00a0made weight and are ready for their showdown this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-580667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580667","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=580667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}