Ryosuke Iwasa promises to show his champion worth versus Portlaoise’s TJ Doheny

Ryosuke Iwasa [25(16)-2(2)] believes he will show his world champion ‘worth’ when he puts his IBF super bantamweight strap on the line against Portlaoise’s TJ Doheny [19(14)-0].

Doheny earned IBF super bantaweight mandatory status with victory over Mike Tawatchi in December and finally found out when and where he would challenge last week.

If Doheny is to join Katie Taylor and Ryan Burnett as a reigning Irish world champion he will have to become only the second fighter from Ireland or the UK to dethrone a Japanese fighter in the Japan – the first and only being Wayne McCullough.

The Murphy’s Boxing fighter’s big shot comes on August 16th and will take place in Toyko.

While Doheny revealed the news last week the champion officially confirmed the fight during a media gathering in his home country yesterday.   

The Japanese fighter dethroned Yukinori Oguni to claim the title in an upset and retained it with victory over Ernesto Saulong last month. ‘The Power’ who holds a National Elite semi final win over Carl Frampton, will be his second defense and, according to the southpaw champion, is the an opponent that will allow him to show his talents.  

“My match with TJ Doheny will be very important for me so that I will be able to demonstrate my worth as a world champion, even more with my pugilistic qualities to the quality of a world champion,” said Iwasa.

The 28-year-old champion has two defeats on his record and on both occasions was stopped – once in England by Lee Haskins, the fighter Ryan Burnett defeated to become a bantamweight world champion, and again earlier in his career by long-reigning bantamweight #1 Shinsuke Yamanaka.

Both of those reverses came against fellow southpaws and 31-year-old Doheny is confident he will make it a hat trick come August 16th.

“He’s stylish, sharp and accurate with his shots. But he’s like that for the early rounds and then the holes start coming through and that’s when I’m going to capitalise on his flaws.”

“So once I start putting some shots on him, the whole fight wll turn and I will get him down the stretch. He’s been down on the deck twice and both by southpaws, which is another confidence builder.”