SATOSHI HOSONO vs HIROYUKI ENOKI

The weekend’s most intriguing and competitive bout, for me anyway, is the one on the big show in Tokyo on Saturday when Satoshi “Bazooka” Hosono defends his OPBF featherweight title against the much more experienced Hiroyuki Enoki.

This is a big step up for the 25-year-old Hosono, but he seems to be ready. He won the Orient and Pacific title with a unanimous decision over a tough and quite clever fighter named Makyo Sugita last October. Sugita’s only loss in his last 13 bouts had been to Enoki, on a hard-fought though unanimous decision.

What is interesting here is that Hosono won by wider margins on the scorecards than Enoki managed to do against Sugita. 


I was able to see the Enoki-Sugita fight, and while Enoki deserved the win it was Sugita who finished the stronger. Sugita was handicapped from early in the fight by a cut over the right eye and he was wiping blood from the eye in the later rounds.

Unfortunately I never got the chance to view Hosono’s fight with Sugita, but it seems that Hosono dominated every round from the fourth onwards. There were no knockdowns but Sugita was docked a point for low blows.

Going by their respective fights with Sugita, then, Hosono should start favourite over Enoki.

It is never that easy, of course. Enoki has had almost twice as many fights as his opponent and lost only two of them, and he has competed on a far higher level. He is a former Japanese and OPBF champion and his best win was probably his unanimous decision win over capable Australian Nedal Hussein (who knocked down Manny Pacquiao in 2000). Enoki fought a 12-round draw with the southpaw Takahiro Aoh, who later captured the WBC belt. He was soundly outpointed by Chris John in a WBA title challenge last October, but Enoki fought gamely in a tough, bloody fight. Enoki’s left eye was swollen almost shut by the middle rounds but he never gave up and appeared to shake John a couple of times with right hands, I had the impression that the undefeated champion was relived to hear the final bell.

In his only fight since then, Enoki lost by split decision to the Japanese-Korean, Ryol Li Lee. I gather that Enoki was coming on strongly at the end but he had lost too many of the earlier rounds. Lee is a speedy, rather elusive boxer, and the feeling in Japanese boxing circles is that Enoki probably underestimated him, feeling that eventually he would catch up with his opponent, and that by the time he realised he needed to step on the gas it was too late.

At least Enoki will not have to go looking for Hosono, who is a power-and-pressure type of fighter, and this is likely to develop into a battle of attrition.

I watched Hosono in his fourth-round win over Masaki Sanagawa, a willing but not very durable southpaw, in January. Sanagawa rocked Hosono with a left hand from his southpaw stance in the first round and had him backed up on the ropes for a spell. After that it was all Hosono. He was going right through Sanagawa by the third and dropped him face down with a big left hook in the fourth.

Hosono is exciting and strong, and he hits hard with either hand, but he seems the type who is willing to take to give and I can envisage Enoki landing freely. Enoki, though, tends to be quite hittable, too, although he has a better defence than Hosono.

I view Enoki as the better technical boxer, with Hosono the more powerful, fresher fighter. Enoki’s loss to Lee was probably a case of the better fighter coming into the contest with a complacent approach that proved costly but, still, it was a defeat and it could indicate that Enoki might be getting a bit worn out. The fight with Chris John was gruelling and he gave everything, and it might be getting harder for Enoki to lift himself psychologically.

I’ve looked long and hard at this bout. Enoki is fighting for his career, but Hosono is the confident, younger fighter who has momentum going for him. I think that Hosono can catch and hurt Enoki. He will have to take his share of punches, but I can picture Hosono gradually ploughing ahead to outlast the older man. It’s a pick ’em fight, but I’ll go with Hosono, most likely on a hard-earned decision.