ESPN’s Fernando Barbosa reports that former two-division champion Juan Francisco Estrada will meet Japanese superstar Tenshin Nasukawa in a WBC bantamweight eliminator on April 10th in Tokyo.
“El Gallo” (45-4, 28 KO), who spent five years as WBC super flyweight champ before a dramatic knockout loss to Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez in 2024, made his divisional debut last June with a decision over Sinaloan club fighter Karim Arce Lugo. He’s clearly still got something left in the tank after that gutsy performance against Rodriguez, but at 35 years old and with a number of punishing fights behind him, it remains to be seen whether he can break through at his highest weight to date.
Nasukawa (7-1, 2 KO), a generationally talented kickboxer who emigrated to the more lucrative lands of the sweet science in 2023, fell short in a vacant title bid against Takuma Inoue last October. As Hansen points out, he’s still extremely early in his boxing career, incredibly physically gifted, and smack in the middle of his prime at 27 years old, so it’s unwise to write him off early.
Really good crossroads fight here; hopefully we in the States get to see it.
