Riku Masuda - Daigo Higa: betting tip (cf 5.25) and bets on the fight

Current form

Riku Masuda is approaching the most important fight of his career after a resounding victory over the legendary Nonito Donaire. In March, the 28-year-old Japanese stopped the former world champion in the eighth round. Masuda's track record: ten wins, one loss, nine knockouts. Since making his professional debut in 2022, he has played only 51 rounds, which in itself speaks volumes about his style. Lefty doesn't like to delay meetings and tries to resolve everything as quickly as possible.

The Japanese had early victories over Vorraphon Yotika, Jeong Ho An, Fumiya Fushe, Jonas Sultan, Yoshihiro Utsumi, Kaisei Matsumoto, Michel Bankes and, finally, Nonito Donaire.  The only misfire occurred in 2023, when Masuda lost to Seiya Tsutsumi by unanimous decision in a championship fight for the title of Japan. However, 11 months later, he managed to become the national champion, winning the belt in a rematch with Foucet. So far, it is Tsutsumi and Donaire who remain the most serious rivals in his career.

Current form

For Daigo Higa, the upcoming duel is an opportunity to regain his place among the strongest. The last time he entered the ring was a year ago and ended a title fight with Antonio Vargas for the WBA belt. Moreover, this was the second draw in a row: before that, a similar result was recorded in a rematch with Seiya Tsutsumi. Even earlier, in September 2024, Higa lost to WBO champion Yoshiki Takei by unanimous decision. As a result, the winless streak has already stretched into three fights. The former champion is now 30 years old. His professional stats look solid: 21 wins, three losses, three draws, including 19 wins by knockout. During his career, he went the distance of 160 rounds. The percentage of early wins is 90.5%, however, in the last ten fights, Higa managed to stop only three opponents. During this period, his record is five wins, two losses and three draws.

Higa's height is 163 cm, and his arm span is 163 cm. According to these indicators, he is inferior to Masuda by 6.3 cm in height and 12.3 cm in arm span. During his career, Higa managed to collect a decent collection of titles. He held the WBC junior flyweight belts, became the champion of the Eastern Pacific region, and in 2017 won the vacant WBC World title by knocking out Juan Hernandez Navarrete in the sixth round. This was followed by successful defenses against Thomas Masson and Moises Fuentes.

The Japanese suffered his first defeat from Christopher Rosales, who stopped him in the ninth round. Higa later won the WBO Asia Pacific light heavyweight belt, defeating Yuki Strong Kobayashi ahead of schedule, but lost to Ryosuke Nishida in the first defense. After that, there were victories over Froilan Saludar and Sirichai Tayen. After the draw with Vargas, Higa announced his retirement, but the pause was short-lived.