We've got to be honest we've again struggled to find much of note to include here though we have got some interesting things for August 21st it's not as many as we'd have liked.
In 1973 Hawaii played host to a card featuring numerous Asian fighters. The most notable of the bouts on this card saw Filipino Ben Villaflor score a 3rd round KO against Japan's Akihiro Kawasaki and in his very next bout, just 2 months later, Vallaflor became a 2-time world champion winning the WBA World Super Featherweight title with an opening round KO against Kuniaki Shibata. That KO was one of the greatest of all time and really should be watched and over. Exactly 8 years after that card saw the birth of one-time world title challenger Daigo Nakahiro, unfortunately for Nakahiro he is best known for his loss to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam rather than any particular win, though he was, for a while, the Japanese Super Flyweight champion. At the time of writing Nakahiro has a record of 24-4-2 (10) and all 4 of those losses have come to world champions. In 2005 Koki Kameda stopped Wanmeechok Singwancha to claim the OPBF Flyweight title, Koki's first professional title. The bout saw Wanmeechok coming in as the champion having won the title 2 months earlier but his reign lasted less than 3 rounds with Kameda dropping him twice in the opening round and again in round 3 as he showed the early promise that had many fans being excited about him. Sadly for Koki, Japan's only 3-weight world champion, he would later become more infamous than famous and now many in Japan have turned against him and his brothers who are all unlicensed by the JBC.
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Some days are more interesting than others and it's fair to say that August 20th was a very interesting day in Asian boxing boxing history. On August 20th 1977 Thai great Saensak Muangsurin made the 4th defence, of his second reign, of the WBC Light Welterweight title with a 6th round victory over talented American challenger Mike Everett. Sadly for Everett this was the beginning of the end for him and he would, if boxrec.com is right, win just 1 of his subsequent 6 bouts before retiring in 1979. If reports are right around 50,000 fans attended this contest and it showed Saensak's incredible popularity at the time. Sadly though the Thai was coming to the end of his career and he would win just 4 of his following 9 bouts before retiring in ill health. In 1994 Ratanapol Sor Vorapin recorded his 7th defence of the IBF Mnimumweight title as he stopped Venezuelan challenger Marcelino Bolivar in 4 rounds of a complete and utter war. The fight, despite lasting less than 12 minutes, saw both men ruled down in round 2, Bolivar down in round 3, Ratanapol deducted a point in round 4 and Bolivar being stopped on the 3 knockdown rule later in round 4. It was anarchy and it ended Bolivar's career with the Venezuelan never fighting against. The Thai southpaw would fight on for another 15 years though how he survived that long with his style is a real mystery. A third notable world title bout took place in 2000 as Malcolm Tunacao made the sole defence of his WBC Flyweight title and retained his belt with a draw against Celes Kobayashi. Unfortunately for the Filipino he lose his title less than 7 months later being taken out in a round by Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. Incidentally just 9 days after Tunacao lost his belt to Wonjongkam fans in Japan saw Kobayashi claim the WBC Super Flyweight title with a 10th round TKO over Leo Gamez. In terms of birthday's we've had two notable champions born on August 20th. The first of those was South Korea's Yong-Soo Choi who was born in 1972 and held the WBA Super Featherweight title from 1994 to 1998 defending it 7 times, including one defence against Lakva Sim and one against Takanori Hatakeyama, who would later beat Choi for the belt. The other champion was Ryo Miyazaki, the recent WBA Minimumweight champion. Miyazaki, who returns to the ring on September 16th, was last seen losing to Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr this past New Years Eve, defended the 105lb title twice before weight struggles forced him to vacate the title. (Image, of Choi, courtesy of boxrec.com) Going through history August 19th has certainly not been one of the most memorable days in Asian boxing boxing history. Thankfully even the lesser days have had something of note happening one way or another. We apologise for the last of really interesting things here but we're just glad to have found some things that have happened on this date. In 1983 Kazakhstan's Beibut Shumenov was born. Shumenov, a former stand out amateur, was a man on the fast track to the top and became the quickest fighter, in history, to claim a Light Heavyweight world title when he won the WBA world title in just his 10th professional bout. Shumenov, now 31, would make 5 defence of that belt before losing in a unification bout to Bernard Hopkins. Exactly 5 years after Shumenov's birth we welcome Filipino contender Rommel Asenjo in to the world. Asenjo has lost in his sole world title fight, a WBO Minimumweight bout against Raul Garcia, though that was 4 years ago and Asenjo has certainly matured since then. Now in his mid 20's Asenjo is primed for another world title title though it seems he may be forced to wait a while as he continues to rebuild his career. In terms of bouts there really hasn't been much of note though Japanese great Hiroshi Kobayashi did suffer his first professional loss on August 19th 1963 being defeated by Manzo Kikuchi, this ended a 19 fight unbeaten streak from Kobayashi. Kobayashi would later become the WBA and WBC Super Featherweight champion. As the champion Kobayashi held the WBC title from 1967 to 1971 whilst he was stripped of the WBC in 1969. (Image, of Kobayashi, courtesy of boxrec.com) Through out time August 18th has become one of the most wonderful days in Asian boxing for both a number of notable fights and an impressive number of birthday's. The first fight of note came back in 1966 when Hiroshi Kobayashi travelled to the USA to defeat Bobby Valdez. That bout was Kobayashi's US debut and just 16 months later he would claim the unified Super Featherweight crown with a stoppage over Yoshiaki Numata. Some 18 years after Kobayashi made his US debut we saw South Korean great Jung-Koo Chang make the 4th defence of his WBC Light Flyweight title with a stoppage against Katsuo Tokashiki. The victory was one of 15 defences for Chang who will forever be remembered as one of the greatest ever Light Flyweights in history. Just 6 years after the Chang/Tokashiki bout we saw another notable bout with a South Korean involved, that time it was Ki Jun Lee who fought against the then WBC Super Bantamweight champion Paul Banke. Unfortunately for Lee he came up short losing a thriller by 12th round TKO, at the time the scorecards were split and everything was to fight for going into the final round. Sadly for Lee however he was looking exhausted and was dropped in round 11 and twice in round 12. This bout would be Lee's sole world title bout and he would fight just twice more before retiring from the sport in the early 1990's. Yet another notable bout involving a South Korean took on this day in 2013 when the then OPBF Light Welterweight champion Min Wook Kim defended his belt with a thrilling victory over Valentine Hosokawa. The bout was to be Km's final OPBF title defence but a memorable bout, in fact for many it was the last stand out bout in Korea and a really memorable contest that showed off just how exciting and how popular Kim was. In terms of birthdays the most notable day was August 18th 1975, a day in which we welcomed two notable fighters in to the world. One of those was the popular Nobuhiro Ishida and the other was female fighting legend Naoko Fujioka. Ishida is, as we all know, one of the few Japanese fighters who has appealed to fans around the world courtesy of several high profile bouts whilst Fujioka is arguably the best female fighter of her generation. In 1984 we welcomed Thailand's Kwanthai Sithmorseng into the world whilst 5 years later Japan's exciting Lightweight prospect Masayoshi Nakatani was born. Sithmorseng, despite only being 30, looks to be heading towards the end of his career whilst Nakatani appears to be heading towards really big things if he can continue to run up notable victories like he has been doing recently. (Image, of birthday boy Ishida, courtesy of boxrec.com) In 2013 we got one of the year's best fights on August 17th as WBC Super Featherweight champion Takashi Miura travelled to Mexico and had a 12 round war with heavy handed challenger Sergio Thompson. The bout was a real thriller with neither man know when, or how, to back down leaving us with little more than relentless violence as the boxing world sat up and took note of Miura who proved himself to be more than just "the other Takashi". Exactly 3 years prior to the Miura/Thompson bout Thailand's Teerachai Kratingdaenggym won his the interim PABA Welterweight title. Teerachai has held the title, in various upgraded forms, ever since. Staying on the theme of titles 1980 saw James Callaghan making the only defence of his Japanese Middleweight title. The bout, Callaghan's 6th as a professional, turned out to be his last before he retired 6-0. According to the boxrec.com database Nepal had it's first ever professional boxing card on August 17th 1998. The show, which apparently only featured a single fight, is one of only 2 recorded to have taken place in the country. The bout was won, via 7th round TKO, by Surendra Guring who appears to hold the distinctive honour of being the only ever Nepalese boxer to have a won a fight in the country! On a similar theme, the same date in 1975 gave us the second ever show in Macao. This show came some 5 months after the first card and although Macau isn't the same as it is now it's still an interesting observation given that it's now well over 30 years since the first set of Macau cards! in 1960 Flash Elorde blew away Harold Gomes in just 80 seconds to record his first defence of the world Super Featherweight title. Elorde had beaten Gomes, in 7 rounds, to claim the title 5 months earlier and would hold the title as world champion until 1964 when he lost Carlos Ortiz. Whilst he was the world champion at 130lbs Elorde continued to defend the OPBF Lightweight title, which he lost and regained before losing his world title. Elorde is still widely considered as one of the 3 greatest Filipino fighters of all time and his record of 89-27-2 (33) saw him battling against the best in the world. In terms of birthdays Thailand's Yodsanan Sor Nanthachai was born in 1974. Yodsanan, real name Theera Phongwan, was a PABA champion at 130lbs at the turn of the millennium before later going on to claim the WBA Super Featherweight title with a victory over Lakva Sim. He is however best remembered for his war with Vicente Mosquera in 2005, sadly however the Thai lost his title in that bout and never got another show at a world title. (Image courtesy of boxrec.com) We'll admit that we've not been doing this section of the site for long but we believe that August 16th has been the most difficult day so far to do. Sadly there really appears to have been very little actually happen through out history on this particular date. But here goes! in 1967 South Korean Young-Kyun Park was born in Seoul. Park debuted in 1986 and would later go on to claim the South Korean Super Bantamweight title, the OPBF Featherweight title and, more notable, the WBA Featherweight title. Park would hold the WBA world title at 126lbs from March 1991 to December 1993 in which time he managed to rack up 8 successful defences. He actually lost the title to Eloy Rojas, a man he had beaten in his second defence, though would lose twice to before retiring. Sadly 3 years before Park was born Japanese fighter Minoru Hasegawa died following a fight with Shigeru Suzuki. The bout was Hasegawa's third as a professional it proved to be a fight that ended the boxing career of both men with Suzuki never fighting again himself. In 1981 Sung-In Suh claimed his first title, the South Korean Super Bantamweight title, by out pointing Ki-Young Chung. Suh later became the IBF Super Bantamweight title, avenging a loss to Bobber Berna to earn the title. Sadly for Suh his reign was show and lasted just 9 months before he lost the belt to fellow Korean Ji-Won Kim. Oddly that 1981 show also had a connection to death as it also featured Deuk-Koo Kim, who fought against Jun Escalera on the show. Kim of course died in tragic circumstances just 15 months later. In 2004 Thai amateur great Somluck Kamsing, one of the medal favourites at 57KG, was eliminated from the Olympics losing a decision to Canadian Benoit Gaudet. Just 2 days later the Korean was eliminated by Hwan-Cho Seok who eventually took home a bronze medal (Image, of Young-Kyun Park, courtesy of boxrec.com) We've got to admit we struggled to find many notable August 15th's though the first we stumbled on was in 1980 when the ill remembered and terribly tragic Thomas Americo claimed his first title. Americo stopped South Korea's Sang-Mo Koo for the OPBF Light Welterweight title in 8 rounds. A little over a year later, August 29th 1981, Americo became the first Indonesian* to challenger for a world title, coming up short against Saoul Mamby. Unfortunately Americo died in 1999 aged just 40 when he was shot during riots in East Timor. In 2003 Thailand's Sirimongkol Singwancha fought his first of 3 US bouts. Sadly for the Thai he lost this one, dropping a 12 round decision to Jesus Chavez. Amazingly since this fight Sirimongkol has gone 11 years with out being defeated run ning up an amazing 37 straight wins! The most recent August 15h of note was in 2009 when Kazakhstan's Beibut Shumenov fought in his first world title fight. Sadly for Shumenov not only did he fight in his first world title bout but he also suffered his first loss, being defeated in a decision to Spain's then WBA Light Heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo. The two men would have a rematch 5 months later with Shumenov taking a much disputed decision that many, including ourselves, are still questioning to this day. On this day in 1991 Genesis Servania, the very talented and highly promising Filipino prospect, was born in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. Servania, who is now 23, is thought o be one of the brightest shining youngsters in the Philippines and already has numerous notable wins, including an all action technical decision over Konosuke Tomiyama. Exactly 6 years prior to Servania birth we welcome Thailand's Petchbarngborn Kokietgym in to the world. Petchbarngborn, real name Karoon Jarupianlerd, is currently a world ranked fighter who may find himself in a world title fight somewhere down the line. Although best known by many for his stoppage loss to Sho Ishida he is still a fighter who is considered a genuine contender in the Super Flyweight division. [*Ed's note-Although Americo is considered the first Indonesian to fight in a world title bout it's worth noting that after his death East Timor gained independence from Indonesia.] (Image courtesy of http://www.fightwriter.com) When we talk about notable days in Asian boxing August 14th 2010 needs to go down as one of the most interesting. In Panama we saw the first "world" title bout involving Gennady Golovkin who blew away Milton Nunez inside a minute to claim the WBA "interim" Middleweight title. The fight was one of the quickest in Golovkin's career and began his stunning run of world title bouts which has seen him score 12 straight stoppages in world title bouts in just 4 years! In Mexico fans had the chance to see Filipino star Donnie Nietes successfully retain his WBO Minimumweight title with a clear decision win over Mario Rodriguez who. Rodriguez would, 3 years, later be beaten by Katsunari Takayama in an IBF title fight also held in Mexico. In the US we saw disappointment as Ji-Hoon Kim failed in his attempt to claim the IBF Lightweight from Miguel Vazquez. Kim was made to look his usual wild and crude self by Vazquez who defended his belt with an easy decision. Prior those trio of world title fights there had, of course, been other notable fights on the same date, including the WBA Bantamweight title fight between South Korea's Sung Kil Moon and Khaokor Galaxy in 1988. The bout, the first between the two men, saw Moon winning the bout with a technical decision. He would later lose the title to Galaxy in a rematch 11 months later. In 1973 we saw Koichi Wajima defending his unified Light Middleweight throne for the 5th time and defeating Silvano Bertini by 12th round TKO. (Image courtesy of boxrec.com) August 13th hasn't been one of the greatest days the history but it has notable for a few reasons, most notable it was, in 1950, the day in which the world welcomed Thai great Saensak Muangsurin who would go on to become a world champion in just his 3rd professional bout. At the time Muangsurin became the clear holder of the world record for fewest professional fights to become a world champion, a record he now shares with Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko. Exactly 28 years after Muangsurin's birthday we then welcomed Thangthong Kiattaweesuk, AKA the Thai Machine Gun. Thangthong didn't go on to have a career as memorable as Muangsurin but when he died, in 2012, he was on the verge of an IBF Super Bantamweight world title fight. Sadly he was just 33 when a motor vehicle accident took his life, and that of his wife and two nephews. On the subject of death we lost the great Payao Poontarat on August 13th 2006 when illness sadly ended his life. Payao had been Thailand's first Olympic boxing medal winner and went on to win the WBC Super Flyweight title before becoming a politician. In 1996 Japanese fans saw Keiji Yamaguchi make the first, and only, defence of the WBA Light Flyweight title, defeating Carlos Murillo who he had also beaten for the title just 3 months earlier. A year prior to Yamaguchi's victory we saw Nobutoshi Hiranaka, the younger brother of Akinobu Hiranaka, fall short in his sole world title fight. Hiranaka was beaten by Eloy Rojas in a contest for the WBA Featherweight title. Sadly Hiranaka also died early, aged just 31, also from injuries suffered in a car accident. (Image courtesy of boxrec.com) August 12th seems to have become a somewhat popular day in recent times for boxing, but in the past the day has had limited notable action. In 1967 however it was the day in which Japan's Hiroyuki Ebihara came up short in his bout with the then WBA Flyweight champion Horacio Accavallo. Despite this set back Ebihara would win this very same belt 19 months later by out pointing Jose Severino to become a 2-time world champion. Some 39 years after Ebihara's loss to Accavallo the boxing world welcomes the debut of two fighters. They were Toshiyuki Igarashi, who debuted with a victory over Yun-Woo Kim, and Filipino slugger Romeo Jakosalem, who lost a decision to Weng Haya. Igarashi would later go on to become a WBC Flyweight champion in 2012. As for Jakosalem he would later become an OPBF Light Welterweight champion before losing his belt to Min Wook Kim in a short but fun to watch contest in 2012. More recently, in 2013, wad had several bouts of note in Japan. At the Korakuen Hall fans were treat to the historic achievement of Tadashi Yuba who became a 5-weight Japanese champion courtesy of a an opening round blow out of Yosuke Kirima which saw him claim the Japanese Light Middleweight title. Whilst Yuba was claiming his 5th division title in in one part of Tokyo fans also had the chance to see both Shinsuke Yamanaka and Akira Yaegashi defending their WBC world titles in a different part of Tokyo. Yamanaka made very light work of the over-matched Jose Nieves in a bout that lasted just 160 seconds. In the other bout Yaegashi struggled to a decision over Oscar Blanquet in a messy contest. (Image, of Ebihara and Accavallo, courtesy of boxrec.com) |
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