Joshua Franco vs Kazuto Ioka 2 reportedly set for June 24th in Tokyo

While Juan Francisco Estrada is still out of the picture for the moment, the super flyweight division is slowly grinding back into motion. Dan Rafael reports that WBA champion Joshua Franco will rematch Kazuto Ioka on June 24th in Tokyo.

Their first meeting was a unification match that saw Franco (18-1-3, 8 KO) outland Ioka (29-2-1, 15 KO) over 12 competitive rounds, only to walk away with a majority draw. Ioka then got the order to defend his title against mandatory challenger Junto Nakatani, a former flyweight titlist, but ultimately elected to vacate and pursue another bout with Franco.

Nakatani will face Andrew Moloney for the vacant belt on the ESPN portion of Devin Haney vs Vasiliy Lomachenko.

Props to both men, honestly, Franco for heading back to hostile territory and Ioka for willingly giving up his title to retry a matchup he struggled with. Looking forward to this one.