Pound-for-pound superstar Naoya Inoue will attempt to become a two-weight undisputed world champion when he takes on Marlon Tapales at Tokyo’s Ariake Arena on December 26.
Inoue stepped up to super-bantamweight to put on a masterclass and dethrone WBC and WBO champion Stephen Fulton inside eight rounds in July.
Tapales beat Murodjon Akhmadaliev via split decision to win the IBF and WBA straps at 122 lbs in April, setting up an unusually high-profile boxing bout on Boxing Day.
Traditionally a day reserved for recovering from Christmas Day excess, big fights tend not to be on the agenda on one of the banner days of the holiday season.
Inoue and Tapales will ink their names onto a date that is hardly stacked on boxing’s historical calendar, although a couple of the biggest names in the sport have gone to work the day after enjoying Christmas dinner, probably minus one or two of the trimmings.
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Inoue vs. Tapales isn’t the only boxing card slated for December 26 this year. It’s not even the only one taking place in Tokyo, with Korakuen Hall hosting a small hall show in every sense.
Fans in Dar es Salaam on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast can get their fight fix at Ubungo Plaza, while there’s a similar smattering of six-rounders across two Italian events in Bologna and Veneto.
Boxing Day fight cards are a long-standing tradition in Italy, something it shares with neighbouring Switzerland. This Tuesday, Swiss-based Dominican Angelo Pena puts his 7-0 record on the line against former world-title challenger Sofiane Takoucht in a 10-round super featherweight contest at Bern’s Kursaal Arena.
The boxing-day.ch website credits Switzerland’s Boxing Day boxing tradition as going back to 1969, although Boxrec lists a 1966 card at the Kursaal topped by Swiss boxing great, former European flyweight champion and two-time world title-challenger Fritz Chervet.
Who did Muhammad Ali fight on Boxing Day?
What is indisputable is that an unmatched demonstration of star power in 1971 went a long way to solidifying the tradition.
Rebuilding after his maiden career defeat to Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century”, Muhammad Ali collected wins over Jimmy Ellis and Buster Mathis before heading to Zurich to take on German heavyweight Jurgen Blin.
Entering the ring as a rank outsider with nine defeats already on his record, Blin elected to roll the dice early on, occasionally discomforting Ali with his wild attacks. However, “The Greatest” soon found his range and Blin was cut around both eyes by the end of round five.
The end came two sessions later when a hellacious right cross sent Blin sagging back into the ropes and onto the canvas, from where he could not beat the count.
Mac Foster knocked out Italian heavyweight Giuseppe Ros on the undercard and his reward was to be in the opposite corner on the next leg of Ali’s world tour at Nippon Budokan, Tokyo in April 1972. Foster dropped a wide 15-round decision.
Jack Johnson’s historic heavyweight Boxing Day win
Despite the enduring legacy of the bout in Switzerland, Ali’s clash with Blin was little more than a marking-time fight. To find a Boxing Day heavyweight clash with true significance — arguably more significance than any fight before or since — we have to turn back the clock to 1908.
Tommy Burns had long evaded fighting Jack Johnson, liberally and disgracefully dismissing the American’s claims to challenge for a shot at the heavyweight title in the crudest racist terms.
Mainstream coverage of Johnson at the time was similarly disgusting — a shock to contemporary eyes but par for the course in the early 20th century. Johnson, however, was not about to play by old rules and prejudices. He pursued Burns relentlessly and literally.
Popping up when the Canadian appeared in New York, San Francisco, London and Paris, Johnson was a true original when it came to the art of the call-out. Eventually, Sydney-based entrepreneur Hugh D MacIntosh put up $30,000 and Burns relented.
The fight took place at Rushcutters Bay against the backdrop of the host country’s White Australia policies. Predictably, the bout was framed in “race war” terms but nothing would throw the iconic Johnson off his game in front of a capacity 20,000 crowd.
He mercilessly battered Burns for 14 rounds before the police intervened to stop the fight and prevent the spectacle of a black fighter knocking out the white champion.
Johnson was denied the imminent emphatic finish, but his status as the first black world heavyweight champion was secured for posterity.
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Boxing Day fights: The Vegas years
The most recent major US fight night on Boxing Day took place in 2020, when PBC rounded out its pandemic year calendar with a behind-closed-doors card at the Shrine Exposition Center in Los Angeles.
Cuban super middleweight contender David Morrell battered Mike Gavronski to a third-round defeat in his fourth professional contest. Future Morrell victim Alantez Fox won a 10-round decision over Marcos Hernandez, while Juan Macias Montiel brought down the curtain on James Kirkland’s career as he dropped the big-punching Texan three times en route to a first-round stoppage.
In the 21st century, Boxing Day fights have more or less disappeared from the American calendar. It was a different case in the 1980s and 1990s as casino fight nights boomed to ensure a potential captive audience 365 days a year.
In 1981 at the Bally’s Park Place Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini claimed a two-round blowout win over Manuel Abedoy, just seven weeks on from being stopped in the 14th round by the masterful Alexis Arguello in an unsuccessful tilt at the WBC lightweight title.
By May 1982, Mancini had his hands on WBA gold thanks to a first-round KO of Arturo Frias. On the same Boxing Day 1981 bill, future Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach claimed a decision win.
At Bally’s Las Vegas branch in 1989, Donald Curry undertook a similar mission to Mancini with a similar results. The two-weight world champion had lost his WBC super welterweight crown in his previous outing, dropping a unanimous decision away from home to France’s Rene Jacquot in a bout named Upset of the Year by Ring Magazine.
Curry got back in the win column with a swift stoppage of Brett Lally, referee Richard Steele waving off the action 41 seconds into round two.
Jeff Mayweather enjoyed his Bally’s outing so much on Boxing Day 1991, where he claimed a unanimous decision over Jesus Rodriguez, that he was back out in Vegas exactly a year later. Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s uncle maybe shouldn’t have bothered as he was held to a majority drawn by Jorge Romero at the Sahara Hotel.
Montell Griffin’s 1997 will forever be remembered for his DQ victory over Roy Jones Jr., where he was hit twice while taking a knee. It meant the great Jones ceded his WBC light heavyweight title and suffered a first career defeat.
Vengeance was swift in the rematch as Jones buzzed, dropped and then brutally stopped Griffin with left hooks in the opening round. He opted to rebuild over the course of three fights in four months at Las Vegas’ Orleans Hotel & Casino. The second of these was a Boxing Day victory in the eighth round against Jesus Castaneda.
It’s no surprise that Boxing Day boxing has disappeared from the Vegas schedules given the relatively low stakes of some of these encounters. In that respect, Inoue vs. Tapales is their polar opposite, with all the marbles up for grabs.