Former world minimumweight champion Katsunari Takayama of Neyagawa Ishida Boxing Club will return to the ring on June 11 in a light flyweight eight-round fight at KBS Hall in Kyoto, western Japan, he told reporters at the gym in Osaka Prefecture on Apr. 14.

While his opponent has not yet been decided, it will be the 39-year-old Takayama’s first fight since losing to then World Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Elwin Soto of Mexico in Dallas, Texas in May 2021.

Takayama said, ‘’I want the time which had stopped in Dallas to begin to move again. I am determined to become a two-division (world) champion.’’

At the same time, Takayama announced he has obtained teaching credential on civics at a high-school level from the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education (while he was inactive as a professional boxer).

Takayama, who made a professional debut in 2000, became the World Boxing Council minimumweight champion in 2005. He then won the World Boxing Association minimumweight interim title in 2006. He also won the International Boxing Federation minimumweight title in 2013 and then the WBO title in the same division in 2014, becoming the first Japanese to win all the titles of the four major sanctioning bodies.

After sending his retirement notice to Japan Boxing Commission in 2017, Takayama turned amateur so that he can enter the Tokyo Olympics. But he failed to participate in the Olympics and returned to the professional boxing world in April 2020.

Takayaha has a professional record of 32 wins, including 12 knockouts, against nine losses and one no contest.