The rebuilding of Marlon Tapales continues as the Filipino southpaw meets Saurabh Kumar of India in a defense of his World Boxing Council (WBC) Asia super-bantamweight crown on 7 September in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
This will be the second fight of Tapales after his tenth-round knockout loss to Japanese pound-for-pound king Naoya Inoue in December last year in Tokyo.
In his last outing, Tapales needed less than a round to crush Nattapong Jankaew of Thailand last May.
Kumar has an 11-1-0 win-loss-draw record with six knockouts and will be fighting for only the second time overseas.
Tapales, parading a 38-4 mark with 20 knockouts, represents JC Mananquil’s SanMan Boxing of General Santos City.
Despite his defeat to Inoue, his handlers are of the belief that Tapales will become a three-time world champion by next year when Inoue decides to go up in weight and leave the thrones of all the sanctioning bodies vacant.
Tapales remains highly rated in the ratings of the WBC, World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF).
The WBC lists him at No. 2 while the WBA rates him at No. 4 and the IBF at No. 3.