Pedro Taduran appears headed for a collision course with the same gutsy and dangerous Japanese puncher he had defeated last year to win the world crown.

This surfaced on Monday with Taduran, the International Boxing Federation (IBF) minimumweight champion, telling DAILY TRIBUNE of this huge possibility following the aborted plans to pit him against Ar-Ar Andales in an all-Filipino showdown next month.

“I was told that I might face Ginjiro (Shigeoka) in a rematch sometime in May,” said Taduran, who stopped Shigeoka in nine rounds last July in Otsu City to bag the IBF 105-lb title.

Though the referee intervened to save Shigeoka from unnecessary punishment, Taduran had to dig deep to pull off the upset victory before the highly-partisan crowd.

Taduran was supposed to defend for the first time last November but his duel with Chinese Zhu Dianxing in Jeju Island, Korea, but it was scrapped owing to financial constraints.

One of just two reigning Filipino world boxing champions, Taduran is co-managed by Elorde siblings Marty and Cucuy and trained by Carl Peñalosa Jr.