On the 12th of May 2019, DEF Promotions held the inaugural Asian Professional Boxing Championship event, an 8-bout fight at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.
The Asian Professional Boxing Championship (APBC) was created by Jay Lau, founder of DEF Promotions under three main objectives. The first objective of the APBC is to initiate and foster professional boxing within Asia under a single, organised, and structured entity. The second objective is to fill fight cards with some of today’s best and up-and-coming stars throughout the continent and provide them a bigger platform to display their abilities. The final objective is to provide high quality and competitive fights to boxing fans, whether it is at the fight venue itself or through various streaming services.
This event featured boxers from 10 countries: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Macao, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. While the fight card was available for online viewing through Facebook Live, because three of the eight bouts featured boxers from China, we also made the stream available in China through 6 different channels.
This event was led by a battle between Raymond Poon (7-1) and Xiang Li (6-2-1) for the World Boxing Organisation Youth Light Flyweight Title, the Asian Boxing Federation Light Flyweight Title, and the World Boxing Council Asian Boxing Council Continental Light Flyweight Title. The bout ended with a unanimous victory for Xiang Li.
The co-main event featured two undefeated fighters: Ren Sasaki (8-0) from Japan and Ge An Ma (6-0) from China. Sasaki was the 2017 All Japan Rookie of the Year, and was able to continue to display his talent by keeping the 0 on his loss column via a sixth round TKO.
Local fan favourite Nanako Suzuki (3-1) returned to Hong Kong, where she unfortunately was unable to secure the victory against Renz Dacquel (1-1).
The fight card also featured two other boxers from the DEF Promotions stable: Lennon Tsoi (4-1) and Ghale Nibesh (4-1).