In possibly the biggest bag fumble since David Benavidez permanently iced himself out of a Canelo fight by losing his super middleweight title, now-former WBA featherweight champion Brandon Figueroa came in over a pound heavy for tomorrow night’s defense against Tomoki Kameda.
Figueroa (27-2-1, 20 KO) tells Chris Mannix that he suffered a “hamstring injury” while training, which would throw a wrench into most non-sauna weight cutting methods. May or may not make a huge impact in the fight, as both
men are generally intent on meeting in the pocket and trying to find out whether their opponents’ ribs are more fragile than their skulls, but it does shoot down Figueroa’s entire roadmap for the immediate future. “The Heartbreaker” reportedly turned down a potential big ‘n tall unification against Rafael Espinoza earlier this year in favor of waiting for Naoya Inoue, who recently made clear his intention to move up to 126 rather than wait for “Bam” Rodriguez.
So much for that.
Kameda (42-5, 23 KO), fighting for the first time since a close loss to the equally inactive Angelo Leo 17 months ago, can still claim the belt with a victory. Odds are he’d inherit the Inoue fight, too; a fight between them would do absolute gangbusters on Japanese turf.
Should he fall short, perhaps no. 1 Mirco Cuello will finally get his due. The Argentinean is coming up on two years since he won a final eliminator, having been forced to watch as Nick Ball fought a pair of super bantamweights before letting Figueroa cut the line. Behind Cuello sits knockout artist Mikito Nakano, then Kameda, then Ivan Chirkov, who somehow got that ranking despite his most recent fight being a six-round draw against a random Uzbek whose previous 11 foes combined for an 0-12 record.
