Gary Antuanne Russell v Andy Hiraoka

Weight:

140 (Super lightweight)

Notable belts:

None

Date:

21 February 2026

Venue:

T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada

Good fight here and the fight that was my most anticipated of the night. I thought Hiraoka had a great chance of winning this in November when it was first set to happen, but he’s just had terrible luck since then. 500+ days out of the ring and then he only arrived in America 3 days before the fight looking very drained. I still thought he’d put up a good fight but in a loss. I was right but this was the most winnable fight for him. Russell boxed well but when Hiraoka threw, he landed. He pissed away the first 5 rounds and then finally had some success in the back half. He just didn’t throw enough and it’s a shame because he was clearly the better fighter when he did. Credit to Russell because he showed a lot of skill in defending his title and he had to fight through adversity here. He took some monster body shots here and kept coming. That low blow was crazy too. Crazy he only took 30 seconds to recover.