BACK in May, Doncaster’s Jamie McDonnell travelled to Texas to take on classy and unbeaten Japanese fighter Tomoki Kameda. What followed was a great fight, one that saw McDonnell get up from a knockdown to win a very close (114-113 on all three cards) unanimous decision.
Now, on Sunday (September 6), Jamie McDonnell, 26-2-1(12) will fight in Texas a second time as he faces the former WBO bantamweight champion who is hungry for revenge. And this time, Kameda, 31-1 (19) and the younger man by five years at the age of 24, has a new trainer in Cuba’s Ismael Antonio Salas (who has guided, amongst others: Jorge Linares, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Beibut Shumenov and Guillermo Rigondeaux).
Salas is sure Kameda, who he recently began working with, will get the win this time.
Q: How long have you been working with Tomoki Kameda?
Ismael Salas: “I have been working with Kameda for eight weeks now.”
Q: How will the rematch be different to the first fight?
I.S: “To me, it is just a matter of concentrating on the mistakes [Kameda made] in the last fight. He did make a few and we have been working on them, correcting them.”
Q: It was a great fight back in May, do you see another tough, possibly distance fight?
I.S: “Yes, we are coming off a very controversial loss and we know we have to push even more to get what we want this time.”
Q: Kameda scored a knockdown over Jamie McDonnell in the first fight, can he get a stoppage this time?
I.S: “We are certainly ready for 12-rounds, but if Kameda drops him once again, for sure he will really go for the finish this time.”
