Kazuto Ioka

Bio

Right then, Kazuto Ioka is one of the most accomplished fighters Japanese boxing has ever produced. Four-weight world champion. Strawweight, light flyweight, flyweight, super flyweight. At 37 years old, he is now one win away from becoming the first Japanese fighter ever to hold world titles in five different weight divisions — a piece of history that would put him alongside the very greatest of his generation.

Make no mistake, Ioka is not a man who has hung around past his time. His debut at bantamweight earlier this year showed his timing remains elite, his ring IQ is as sharp as it has ever been, and his mind is absolutely on this challenge. The body has, perhaps, slowed a half-step from his late-twenties peak — but the mind has gained everything that step lost.

Going up two divisions at 37 to challenge for a fifth-weight world title at the Tokyo Dome on the biggest night Japanese boxing has ever produced? That is a story you write at the end of your career. He has lived in the sport for fifteen years and has nothing left to prove — except this one piece of history. If he pulls it off Saturday against Takuma Inoue, he writes himself permanently into the all-time list. A proper legend going for the impossible.