By Ian S Palmer
WBC Super Featherweight Champion Miguel Berchelt of Mexico will be defending his belt against former champ Takashi Miura at the Forum in Inglewood, California this Saturday, July 15th. The 12-round bout can be seen live in North America on HBO while fans in the UK can catch it live on BoxNation. This bout could be a fight-of-the year candidate if it lives up to its potential just like most of Berchelt’s and Miura’s bouts. Berchelt’s last contest took place in January when he stopped Francisco Vargas in the 11th round to win the title. Miura also fought in January and stopped Miguel Roman in the 12th round.
Berchelt is 25 years old and has an excellent record of 31-1 with 28 Kos. He turned pro back in 2010 and has 110 rounds under his belt. He stands 5-feet-7-inches tall with a reach of 71 inches. Berchelt’s record shows that he has quite a bit of power and his current knockout ratio is a very impressive 88 per cent. His lone loss was a first-round TKO at the hands of Luis Florez in 2014. Berchelt’s best wins have been against Vargas, George Jupp, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Escalante, Carlos Reyes and Cristobal Cruz.
Former WBC Super Featherweight Champ Miura of Tokyo is a southpaw and is now 33 years old. He enters the ring with an impressive record of 31-3-2 with 24 Kos to his name. He’s fought 207 rounds since turning pro back in 2003. Miura stands just over 5-feet-6-inches tall and has a reach of 70 inches, meaning he has a negligible disadvantage in both departments. Miura also has pretty good power with a current knockout ratio of 67 per cent.
Miura also has a good chin even though he’s been stopped twice in his three losses. Those defeats came to former champ Francisco Vargas by ninth-round stoppage in a classic in November of 2015 as well as being stopped after the eighth round against Takashi Uchiyama in 2011. Miura also dropped a 10-round unanimous decision to Yusuke Kobori in 2007. His two draws were against Yoshimitsu Yashiro in 10 rounds in 2009 and an eight-round affair in 2004 against Akinori Suzuki.
Miura won the WBC Super Featherweight Title in 2013 with a ninth-round stoppage over Gamaliel Diaz. He defended it four times until losing it to Vargas. It’s going to be interesting to see how much their recent wars have taken out of both Berchelt and Miura. But even if they’ve both lost a step, this should be a highly-entertaining and dramatic fight while it lasts and it may not be for the squeamish since both men have tremendous power as well as solid chins.
Prediction…
This is a tough one to predict since it’s going to come down to power, the ability to take a punch and pure determination. No outcome should be surprising here and you should just sit back and enjoy it. Berchelt appears to have a bit of an edge when it comes to age and speed though and it’s understandable that he’s the slight favourite.
