Bantamweight champ Marlon Tapales considers offers in England, Japan

MANILA, Philippines – The promoter of newly-crowned WBO bantamweight champion Marlon Tapales is entertaining multiple offers for his first title defense.

Tapales (29-2, 12 knockouts) is coming off a Fight of the Year candidate performance last month against Pungluang Sor Singyu, rising off the canvas twice to score an eleventh-round knockout and win the 118-pound title

Rex “Wakee” Salud, who handles the Lanao del Norte native, says he has received two offers from Japan, one from England and one from Australia. The English boxer, 27-year-old Paul Butler (21-1, 12 knockouts), is rated number 12 by the WBO and has beaten 4 straight European-level contenders since losing an eighth-round technical knockout to Zolani Tete for the IBF junior bantamweight title. Prior to that, Butler had won the IBF bantamweight title.

Another one of the offers, from the camp of Takuma Inoue, could pit Tapales against a 20-year-old junior bantamweight who is the younger brother of WBO 115-pound titleholder Naoyi Inoue. Takuma (7-0, 2 KOs) is set to face Filipino contender Froilan Saludar on September 4 in Zama, Japan.

Salud also revealed that there was interest from Shohei Omori, the Japanese fighter Tapales knocked out in two rounds last December to become the mandatory challenger to Sor Singyu, for a rematch.

The fourth possibility is an offer to face TJ Doheny, the 15-0 (11 KOs) Irishman based in Australia who is rated number 15 by the WBO at 118 pounds. Doheny’s manager Mike Altamura confirmed an invitation to stage the fight late November in Vietnam.

Tapales, who is already doing light training at Salud’s gym in Cebu, says he was told the Inoue fight was most likely but added “it’s not yet sure.”

“We have so many offers now but we have to study first what we want,” says Salud, who said a decision should be finalized by next week. – Rappler.com

Ryan Songalia is the sports editor of Rappler, a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) and a contributor to The Ring magazine. He can be reached at ryan.songalia@rappler.com. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanSongalia.