By Carlos Costa

Boxing icon Oscar de la Hoya landed Tuesday night((March 26) in China ahead of his meetings with top Chinese promoters and to attend regional WBA and OPBF title clashes between world-ranked Chinese, Thai and Japanese fighters this Saturday, March 30, at the plush Putou Indoor Stadium in the legendary eastern Chinese City known as “The Pearl of the Orient,” Shanghai.

De la Hoya was received at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport by his host, award-winning promoter Liu Gang, head of China’s Max Power Promotions, and handler of WBA Featherweight World Champion Can Xu (16-2, 2 KO’s).

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“It is a pleasure and an honor to welcome Mr. Oscar de la Hoya to China,” said Liu Gang today, “we look forward to great meetings and to forge a really good relationship.”

Saturday evening, de la Hoya will attend a triple-header card promoted by Liu Gang, a Chinese man of boxing who claimed the “WBC ABCO East Asian Promoter of the Year Award” during the 3rd WBC Women’s Convention last November in Manila, Philippines.

The Shanghai triple-header includes world-ranked former flyweight world champion Sho Kimura (17-2-2, 10 KO’s) of Saitama, Japan, battling former WBC Asian ruler Wicha Phulaikhao (60-10, 24 KO’s) of Thailand for the vacant OPBF Flyweight Belt.

Sho Kimura  — the tough Nippon fighter who ended the stellar boxing career of Chinese former Top Rank champion Zou Shiming  — aims at another shot at the flyweight world title, and Saturday he will have a chance to push his plan forward.

Also seeing action is Liu Gang’s protégé WBA world-ranked 24-year-old Baishanbo Nasiyiwula (15-2-1, 6 KO’s) of China’s far northwest Xinjiang Uygur region defending his WBA Asia 140-pound strap against tough and focused Japanese warrior Yusuke Konno (14-4-7 KO’s) of Tokyo.