Jorge Linares
While making contributions to those issues over years, Honda worked on the world title fights of Cesar Bazan (since the 1990s), Edwin Valero et al. in the 2000s. In July 2007, he sent Jorge Linares to Las Vegas, Nevada, to successfully fight for and win his first world title. He became the Japan's eighth world champion to be crowned across the sea. In April 2010, Honda arranged the de facto unification match Hozumi Hasegawa vs. Fernando Montiel. At that time, Montiel's WBO title was not at stake under the policies of the Japan Boxing Commission. Hasegawa had wished to move to the featherweight division from more than two months ago, but he asked Honda to negotiate saying that he wanted to fight against Montiel even if his match fee would decline (Honda actually did not do it though). The Japan's oldest surviving boxing journal "Boxing Magazine" placed that fight as the best card in Japan's boxing history as of April 2010. Montiel received the second highest purse following Mike Tyson among the world champions fought in Japan.