Japan\'s Yamanaka, Igarashi to defend boxing titles

Japan\'s World Boxing Council bantamweight champion Shinsuke Yamanaka and flyweight champion Toshiyuki Igarashi will both defend their titles in November, organisers said on Thursday. The bouts will be fought in Sendai on November 3 as a charity event for the disaster caused by a huge 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The tsunami killed thousands of people and crippled the cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing meltdowns in three of its reactors. Yamanaka, 29, will take on former WBC super flyweight champion Tomas Rojas of Mexico, 32, who is ranked seventh in the category. It will be Yamanaka\'s second defence of the title he won in November last year. He has 16 wins, including 11 KOs and two draws, while Rojas has 39 wins, including 26 KOs, against 13 defeats and one draw. \"I\'m going to pile up points and try to knock him out in the latter half,\" said Yamanaka. Igarashi, 28, will fight Nestor Narvaes of Argentina, 30, and ranked ninth in the WBC, who has 19 wins, including nine KOs, two defeats, one null and void. \"It will be my first defence of the title but I\'m not going to try to defend it. I\'m going to fight as a challenger as I did last time,\" said Igarashi, who has 16 wins, including 10 KOs, against one defeat and a draw.