Marlon Tapales arrives in Japan

Tapales Arrives
Photo: Boxing Beat Magazine

By Joe Koizumi

WBA, IBF 122-pound champion Marlon Tapales (37-3, 19 KOs) arrived in Japan today (Tuesday) to participate in an ultimate unification bout with WBC, WBO counterpart “Monster” Naoya Inoue (25-0, 22 KOs) at Ariake Arena, Tokyo next Tuesday.

Having dethroned Murodjon Akhmadaliev to wrest the WBA and IBF belts this April, Tapales will welcome a big payday and an opportunity to acquire all the four belts with his high motivation. Marlon reportedly trained two months in Las Vegas and then moved to his native Philippines to work a month more there, having engaged in more than one hundred sparring sessions in total.

Tapales said, “I’m in very good shape, and wish to win over Inoue clearly. I know Inoue is an excellent boxer with high IQ, but I’ll do everything possible to be victorious.” Time will tell.

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  • I cannot see him winning this one, but I do think that Tapales just might give Inoue his best fight since the first with Donaire.

  • Tápales is good boxer and he is tough

    But Inoue is in another level

    Inoue tko 10 or wide unanimous decicion

  • Like Ja Rule say’s in some of his songs…”its muurddaahh”! I don’t think Tapales beats Fulton, and we saw what Inoue did.

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