Dennis Hogan issues challenge to all Asia-Pacific stars
WBO #11 light middleweight Dennis Hogan is back in action on November 12th in his adopted home city of Brisbane.
The World-title chasing 31 year old recently won the WBO Oriental title with an impressive points victory over Samuel Colomban and he wants another big fight less than two months later.
Hogan [24(7)-1(0)-1] has issued a challenge to the top-level boxers in his area. The Kildare fighter stated that “just to put it in the public domain, I want to defend my Oriental title against anyone who is above me in the Boxrec ratings from Australia or the Asia-Pacific.”
“ANYONE above me, not behind me.”
“This is not arrogance, I want to increase my WBO ranking and the only way to do that is to defend my title against someone ranked ahead of me on Boxrec from this region.”
“Plus I want to bring the best fight possible to Brisbane ,the supporters deserve that.
“I can’t make it any clearer, November 12th, Brisbane, you want my WBO World ranking, I want your Boxrec ranking, let’s do it”
A quick perusal of the popular ranking site shows five fighters from the region positioned above the #58-rated lilywhite.
They are:
#28 – Anthony Mundine (Australia). The veteran however seems set to rematch Danny Green next January
#40 – Dennis Laurente (Philippines). Another veteran, although the 39 year old has not fought since last November.
#43 – Takayuki Hosokawa (Japan). The man who defeated Laurente that night. Already has a fight scheduled for November however.
#27 – Yoshihiro Kamegai (Japan). US television favourite due to his two wars with Jesus Soto Karass.
#24 – Yuki Nonaka (Japan ). The Japanese champion. Also rated #4 by the WBO.
One final fighter who could also be a target for Hogan is Thailand’s Sirimongkol Singwancha. The 39 year old is #86 with Boxrec, but the reigning WBO Asia-Pacific champion, who boasts a 90(57)-2(1) record, is ranked #7 with the organisation. A former WBC bantamweight and super featherweight champion in the late 1990s and early 2000s, whether Singwancha could be tempted away from Thailand is another question.
