By Joe Koizumi

All shows scheduled until April 30 were cancelled or postponed by the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) and the JPBA (Japan Professional Boxing Association), the union of all licensed club owners (some 270), on Friday. Previously they had decided to cancel all up to April 15 but now extended the application of the forced cancellations for fifteen more days due to the unceasing coronavirus outbreak, which the WHO lately declared pandemic on Wednesday.

The cancelled shows were as follows:

March 1, Osaka

OPBF light flyweight title bout for the vacant championship between Daiki Tomita and Kenichi Horikawa

March 7, Tokyo

Japanese super welterweight title bout of Hironobu Matsunaga and #1 Yuto Shimizu

March 8, Okayama

Japanese flyweight title bout of Yuri Akui and #1 Seiya Fujikita

March 15, Kariya

Japanese light flyweight title bout of Yuto Takahashi and #1 Masamichi Yabuki

March 17, Tokyo

OPBF minimumweight title bout Lito Dante and #1 Masataka Taniguchi (this card was once postponed until April 28, but the JBC/JPBA’s latest decision again put it off to another date TBA)

March 27, Kobe

OPBF female featherweight title bout of Wakako Fujiwara and Pornchita Seehaburan

March 30, Tokyo

Japanese female featherweight title bout of Kimika Miyoshi and #3 Yoshie Wakasa

April 4, Tokyo

WBO flyweight title bout between Junto Nakatani and Giemel Magramo

April 19, Osaka

Japanese youth flyweight title bout of Joe Shiraishi and Tetsuya Miura

April 25, Osaka

Japanese super-featherweight title bout of Kosuke Saka and Takuya Watanabe

April 28, Tokyo

Japanese super-bantamweight title bout of Yusaku Kuga and #1 Gakuya Furuhashi

The Japanese system in general is to deliver tickets on behalf of boxers’ purses and the boxers serve as ticket-sellers to produce their purses, that is, to change the tickets into money. Therefore, for the boxers and/or their boxing clubs, the money-changing distribution takes at least a month and a half prior to the promotion. So, the JBC and the JPBA thus decided to cancel or postpone the schedule until end-April. The next JBC/JPBA meeting will take place on March 23, when they will carefully watch the coronavirus situation in accordance with the government’s suggestion and then decide their policy on the forthcoming shows from May 1 on.