I appreciated Royval vs Taira

[HuskySamoan]

Taira needs an American coach to teach him boxing idk, but whenever I watch Japanese fight Americans they get out classed.
Probz because boxing is way bigger in America >.>

What? Japan is an elite country when it comes to boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and judo. Their MMA gyms are problematic though...they don't take the sport as seriously as the US, Brazil, Russia or Central Asia...that's for sure and they don't have the training partner stable, resources, network for cross training and a cast of elite coaches the way bigger gyms in other countries often do. Taira does do part of his training camps in Colorado, just ask many Japanese fighters base their camps at ATT and other gyms as well like Rinya Nakamura and Kyoji Horiguchi. Taira needs time is all, he's 24 and caught a very competitive L his first time going passed 3 rounds vs a top 5 Flyweight in the world who's in his prime in Royval. Taira needs to log about 100 more hours of sparring over the next year or two, head movement, punch mechanics, learn to throw combinations, get more effective with the lead hand, snappier jab, lead hook, uppercuts etc. And as for kicks, he tends to just throw low...he should work on throwing mid and high, vs Royval a southpaw he basically threw zero body kicks, but as an orthodox striker you get to kick to the open side of the body vs a southpaw so it should be on display..even his grappling he never opened up with GnP despite all the control time until the 4th round randomly. Another big flaw.

Anyways yeah, kid needs to cook more. He does train in the US, he should cross train more with kickboxing and boxing gyms in Japan and he should for sure be logging sparring hours and working on his defense and fluidity. You can tell he's young and that grappling came way more naturally for him and that's what he built his game around.

 

[MigitAs]

Royval is like Tony Ferguson during his peak striking ability, but has so many glaring holes in his grappling.

 

[Ballsaque]

Sometimes you need someone like Brandon to weed out the contenders before the champ can. Then again they sort of exposed each other. I'm sure they can both fight for gold someday

As for new blood there's someone named Kai Asakura fighting for the belt in December

Wait, what? They are putting him DIRECTLY in with the champion? That seems quite unpresidented has that happened before, except maybe back with Pride?

 

[T-dog.1337]

Boxing is not way bigger in USA than in Japan, and Japan has many top tier boxers.

Just within the last 3 days there have been 4 big boxing cards in Japan, featuring multiple world champions. One is happening today.

Eh well idk I watch mostly female so I wasn’t sure if I’d be wrong but yeah the female boxers don’t hold a candle to American female boxers!

 

[T-dog.1337]

What? Japan is an elite country when it comes to boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and judo. Their MMA gyms are problematic though...they don't take the sport as seriously as the US, Brazil, Russia or Central Asia...that's for sure and they don't have the training partner stable, resources, network for cross training and a cast of elite coaches the way bigger gyms in other countries often do. Taira does do part of his training camps in Colorado, just ask many Japanese fighters base their camps at ATT and other gyms as well like Rinya Nakamura and Kyoji Horiguchi. Taira needs time is all, he's 24 and caught a very competitive L his first time going passed 3 rounds vs a top 5 Flyweight in the world who's in his prime in Royval. Taira needs to log about 100 more hours of sparring over the next year or two, head movement, punch mechanics, learn to throw combinations, get more effective with the lead hand, snappier jab, lead hook, uppercuts etc. And as for kicks, he tends to just throw low...he should work on throwing mid and high, vs Royval a southpaw he basically threw zero body kicks, but as an orthodox striker you get to kick to the open side of the body vs a southpaw so it should be on display..even his grappling he never opened up with GnP despite all the control time until the 4th round randomly. Another big flaw.

Anyways yeah, kid needs to cook more. He does train in the US, he should cross train more with kickboxing and boxing gyms in Japan and he should for sure be logging sparring hours and working on his defense and fluidity. You can tell he's young and that grappling came way more naturally for him and that's what he built his game around.

I say against a southpaw you wanna circle to their right, away from their lead hand. Taira had good feints which saved him a lot in the 50/50 position also the threat of takedowns. But if he tried to walk him down he would be punished. Also he didn’t have any GNP!! Whereas royval did!!!

 

[HHJ]

Good fight, bad performance.

I wont say its bad, he will probably learn from this experience. He will rewatch it and see where he did wrong.

He said at the end of the fight he though he'd blow through the guy but Taira was tougher than he expected. I think he expected to outgrapple Taira or didnt respect his grappling as much but that was a big mistake.