Rise and shine KO challenge of Tapales

This Tuesday, December 19, Filipino Marlon “Nightmare” Tapales (37-3/19KOs), 31, arrived in Tokyo, Japan, for the unification fight on December 26 at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo.

It’s agsinst formidable WBC and WBO super bantamweight world champion, the 30-year-old Japanese Naoya “Monstruo” Inoue (25-0/22KOs). It will be broadcast live on LEMINO on NTT Docomo in Japan and ESPN in the United States.

After leaving the plane beaming with self-confidence , Marlon Tapales, an aggressive southpaw Filipino fighter from the city of Tubod in the Lanao del Norte province of Mindanao island appeared in a Haneda airport lounge and breezily declared that he is going to knock out Naoya Inoue against all odds.

“I am very happy being in Japan and I am motivated from the heart and with joy to emerge victorious in a resounding way against Naoya Inoue, whom I am going to knock out.

“I consider Naoya to be a great, skilled and intelligent boxer. But, because I have accomplished a great notable achievement in my physical preparations in Las Vegas and in the Philippines for this fight, I am ready to beat Naoya Inoue. I am aware that I am not a favorite in the predictions. But, I don’t care about that, the result will be different.”

From the end of August to the beginning of November for almost three months, Tapales was in Las Vegas, to undergo intensive training ahead of his slugfest with Naoya Inoue and since November 8, Tapales moved to his homeland of the Philippines. and began training at an altitude of 1,540 meters above sea level in Baguio City on the island of Luzon for just over a month.