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WBA Asia Boxing Championship to take place in Vietnam for first time

WBA Asia Boxing Championship to take place in Vietnam for first time

Three continental-level matches of the WBA Asia Boxing Championship (LEAD: BORN TO LEAD) will take place at the Saigon Sports Club in Ho Chi Minh City on March 25, the Ho Chi Minh City Boxing Federation (HBF) announced on February 22.

LEAD's fanpage also announced a poster featuring the top two Vietnamese boxers who hold the WBA Asia championship belts, Truong Dinh Hoang and the world's No. 8 Le Huu Toan. They will defend their titles against rivals from the Republic of Korea and the Philippines in two thrilling matches.

Toan will take on World Boxing Council (WBC) No. 8 Garen Diagan from the Philippines for the World Boxing Association (WBA) Asia minimumweight (48kg) strap.

Meanwhile, Hoang will go up against the RoK's No.1 and WBA Asia No. 11 Baek Dae Hyun for the super middleweight (76kg) WBA Asia belt.

This will be Toan's second title defence after he beat Filipino Jake Amparo on points after 12 rounds in Bangkok, Thailand. The victory pushed him to the WBA's No. 8 place in the world rankings.

Diagan is a top athlete in his home country and No. 6 in the WBC rankings. The 26-year-old is No. 15 in the world, eight places higher than the Vietnamese representative. Diagan has recorded nine wins (5KOs) and three losses (1KO). He won a local professional championship in 2019 before challenging for the WBC Asia belt last July but came up short.

The March 25 match against Toan is his third continental title bout.

In the later fight, 'The King' Hoang will face Baek, the RoK's leading pro boxer. The 25-year-old Korean is No. 102 of 1,371 boxers in his weight class in the world. He is 303 places higher than Hoang.

If successful, this will be the first time that Hoang and Toan have defended their WBA Asia championship belts on the home turf, said the HBF.

Promising boxer Nguyen Ngoc Hai will also be fighting in this tournament, with the hope of bringing another WBA Asia championship belt to Vietnam.

LEAD: BORN TO LEAD is the second tournament in the LEAD professional boxing series organised by the HDF in collaboration with Shadow Entertainment Company. The aim is to build LEAD as a platform for Vietnamese boxers to compete at the same level as international tournaments, and to become a solid launching pad for Vietnamese boxers to reach the world stage./

VNA/VNP


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