Yoshiki Takei suffers injury, world title bout delayed; Ohashi says all Inoue's future bouts will have a reserve opponent
This past weekend the unfortunate news that the planned contest between Undisputed Super Bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue (28-0, 25) and unbeaten Australian challenger Sam Goodman (19-0, 8) had had to be delayed, due to Goodman suffering an injury in sparring. The delay for the injury saw the show being pushed from December 24th to January 24th. And now the card has appeared cursed, with another injury affecting the plans.
That injury is a torn labrum suffered by WBO Bantamweight champion Yoshiki Takei (10-0, 8) [武居由樹], who was set to defend his title against unbeaten Thai challenger Yuttapong Tongdee (15-0, 9) in the chief support bout. The injury is expected to take around 4 weeks to heal, ruling him out of a January date, with Spring looking more likely for the bout, which sounds like it will be rescheduled with the rest of the show taking place on the January date.
Takei, along with trainer Akira Yaegashi and promoter Hideyuki Ohashi, announced the delay at a press conference today, with Ohashi also explaining that "in preparation for any unforeseen circumstances (in the main event)," the card will feature another bout featuring a world ranked Super Bantamweight, essentially a replacement if Goodman gets injured close to fight time and has to pull out, rather than having Inoue wasting more time. This is not the first time Ohashi has done this, with TJ Doheny being on the under-card of Inoue’s bout with Luis Nery for the same reason.
At the same event Ohashi also spoke about the delay to the December 24th card. He explained that within 3.5 hours of Goodman’s injury he and his team had rebooked the venue, contacted everyone on the card and explained the situation, essentially letting everyone know that the entire card was being pushed back. He did that whilst also getting a contingency in place, and revealed that they had a deal in place with a replacement fighter, for the December date, and also that Goodman himself wanted to fight, despite the injury, but was talked out of it by his team.
Speaking about Inoue’s reaction to hearing about Goodman’s injury, the Monster is said to have told Ohashi “It's totally OK. I'm open to anything."
Interesting Ohashi added that the idea to have world ranked Super Bantamweights on the undercard will be an idea that he’s going to go with longer term, stating "create reserve fighters for all of Inoue's bouts from now on."
That injury is a torn labrum suffered by WBO Bantamweight champion Yoshiki Takei (10-0, 8) [武居由樹], who was set to defend his title against unbeaten Thai challenger Yuttapong Tongdee (15-0, 9) in the chief support bout. The injury is expected to take around 4 weeks to heal, ruling him out of a January date, with Spring looking more likely for the bout, which sounds like it will be rescheduled with the rest of the show taking place on the January date.
Takei, along with trainer Akira Yaegashi and promoter Hideyuki Ohashi, announced the delay at a press conference today, with Ohashi also explaining that "in preparation for any unforeseen circumstances (in the main event)," the card will feature another bout featuring a world ranked Super Bantamweight, essentially a replacement if Goodman gets injured close to fight time and has to pull out, rather than having Inoue wasting more time. This is not the first time Ohashi has done this, with TJ Doheny being on the under-card of Inoue’s bout with Luis Nery for the same reason.
At the same event Ohashi also spoke about the delay to the December 24th card. He explained that within 3.5 hours of Goodman’s injury he and his team had rebooked the venue, contacted everyone on the card and explained the situation, essentially letting everyone know that the entire card was being pushed back. He did that whilst also getting a contingency in place, and revealed that they had a deal in place with a replacement fighter, for the December date, and also that Goodman himself wanted to fight, despite the injury, but was talked out of it by his team.
Speaking about Inoue’s reaction to hearing about Goodman’s injury, the Monster is said to have told Ohashi “It's totally OK. I'm open to anything."
Interesting Ohashi added that the idea to have world ranked Super Bantamweights on the undercard will be an idea that he’s going to go with longer term, stating "create reserve fighters for all of Inoue's bouts from now on."