We've recently looked at some gyms and some titles in this series so now for something a little bit different a venue. And a rather obscure one at that. For this weeks Did you know we've going to take a little bit of a look at the Portopia Hotel in Kobe, and feature some of the most notable fights to ever take place in the venue. For those worried about us writing an advert for the hotel, we're sticking to just the fights and details regarding them, not the size or location of the venue. -The venue was first for used for boxing in 2014 -To date there have only been 3 cards held at the hotel, however all 3 have featured world title bouts. In fact there have been a combined 4 world title bouts over those 3 cards. -The only Japanese fighter to ever win a world title fight at the venue is the now retired Ryuya Yamanaka, who retained the WBO Minimumweight title at the venue in March 2018 when he stopped Moises Calleros. -The worse record of any fighter at the venue is 0-2, a record held by Reiya Konishi, who twice lost in world title bouts at the venue. He has lost to both Carlos Canizales and Felix Alvarado in the hotel. -The first world title bout at the hotel saw Teiru Kinoshita lose to Zolani Tete in a bout for the IBF Super Flyweight title. -If you put those previous facts together you'll know that Japanese fighters are 1-3 in world title fights in the venue. -At the time of the Kinoshita Vs Tete bout the Japanese local was actually employed by the hotel as his day job! We think that's about the best example of a fighter ever having "home" advantage as we can get! --To date Hibiki Takano is the only man to have ever won his debut at the venue -The venue has only hosted a single Japanese title bout, which saw Kenichi Horikawa retain the Japanese Light Flyweight title in 2019 with a win over Masashi Tada. That was Horikawa's 40th professional win. -At the time of writing Kenichi Horikawa is the only man to have twice won at the venue! He beat Tada, as mentioned, but also beat Natchaphon Wichaita in 2018. -The Konishi Vs Alvarado bout has seemingly never been televised. It was streamed, by Alvarado's team, and held in association with a TV company, but as far a we can tell no TV video of the bout has yet to suface online. We have included Kinoshita's bout with Tete, the first world title fight there, and Konishi's bout with Canizales, which for our money was the best of the world title bouts there.
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We've all heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and we've decided to put our spin on things with "Six degrees of separation" looking to connect Asian fighters you may never have assumed were connected! Today we connect former Mongolian world champion Lakva Sim with 2-time Japanese world champion Jiro Watanabe. Just as ground rules, we're not doing the more basic "A beat B who beat C who beat D" type of thing, but instead we want to link fighters in different ways. As a result we will limit A fought B connections, and try to get more varied connections together, as you'll see here! We also know there are often shorter routes to connect fighters, but that's not always the most interesting way to connect them. 1-Mongolian fighter Lakva Sim is the only world champion to come from the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky. First won a world title in June 1996 when he stopped popular Japanese fighter Takanori Hatakeyama to claim the WBA Super Featherweight title. 2-Another fight won won their first world title in June 1996 was Vitali Klitschko, who won the WBO Heavyweight title a day before Sim won his belt. Klitschko would claim his title by stopping Herbie Hide in the second round before having a notable career in the ring and then becoming a notable politician. Although a successful fighter many regard him as the lesser of the two boxing Klitschko brothers. 3-The Klitschko's are certainly not the other pair of boxing brothers to leave an impact on the sport. Some other notable boxing brothers are the Kameda brothers, with all 3 Kameda's winning world titles during their careers. The Kameda brothers were, of course, Koki, Daiki and Tomoki and were a hugely controversial trio, with their father Shiro Kameda also being a decisive figure in the sport. 4-The Kameda brothers might have been the most successful trio of brothers in Japanese boxing but they were certainly not unbeatable. The first loss any of the trio suffered came in October 2007, when Daisuke Naito defeated Daiki Kameda in a foul filled bout at the Ariake Colosseum. 5-In the first recorded show at the Ariake Colosseum fans saw Katsuya Onizuka defended the WBA Super Flyweight title, with a decision win against Armando Castro to record his second successful defense. 6-Katsuya Onizuka's reign as the WBA Super Flyweight champion saw him making 5 defenses of the belt. Notably he was only the second Japanese fighter to hold the title. The first was Jiro Watanabe! Watanabe didn't just beat Onizuka in terms of being the first but also in number of defenses, with the controversial Watanabe recording 6 defenses of the belt. When we talk about great fighters we often talk about those who achieved greatness, the ones that won world titles and that reached the top of the sport. Today, for our continuing 5 Midweek Facts series, we look at Naoto Takahashi (19-4, 14). Takahashi never reached the top of the sport, but yet he's still one of the most interesting fighters out there. He is very much a fan favourite due to his style, his looks, his attitude, and the excitement of his bouts. Dubbed the "Prince of the Reversal", Takahashi was in some of the most amazing bouts of his era. Win or lose he was amazingly fun to watch. His bouts with Mitsuo Imazato, Mark Horikoshi and his first bout against Noree Jockeygym were breath taking displays of action, will to win and sheer bloody mindedness. He put on fights that excited fans and live on. Almost 30 years after his last bout he is still a popular figure among Japanese boxing fans. 1-In the years following Takahashi's win over Mark Horikoshi, which we've included under this article, Takahashi revealed he couldn't remember most of the fight. It appears that from round 3 or 4 he was fighting on instinct until his brain kicked back in round 9. He's been in several sources mentioning this type of thing. Upon learning of Horikoshi's death in 2015 Takahashi described his former foe as being a very kind man and wanted to thank him for their bout. 2-Takahashi featured on the under-card of Mike Tyson's 1990 bout with James Douglas, where he had his second bout with Noree Jockeygym. That bout was the start of the end for Takahashi and it seems like that was the bout that really showed the cost of his career. He only fought twice more after this, and less than a year later he had to retire due to a brain injury, suffered in his 1991 bout with Jong Pil Park. He later admitted that he was punch drunk after this Noree bout. 3-In 2004 Takahashi released an autobiography. The title essentially translates as "The Pride of a Beaten Dog". This book is currently available on amazon.jp for those interested in adding it to their collection. 4-After his forced retirement from boxing Takahashi resumed his involvement in the sport. He not only did commentary, for pay TV channel GAORA, but was also worked at the JB Sports Gym, which is run by Jyoji Morikawa, and ran his own gym. 5-Given that we've just mentioned Jyoji Morikawa lets go out on a high and add that the Miyata Ichiro character in Hajime No Ippo is based on Takahashi, using his likeness. Although the fighting style of the character more closely resembles that of Sugar Ray Leonard. When we talk about national boxing hero's few people rival the legendary Manny Pacquiao, and what he's done for the Philippines has been massive. One of the few who perhaps did rival Pacquiao in terms of what he meant to his homeland was Chris John, who really was a massive star in Indonesia. Indonesia, unlike the Philippines, doesn't have the strong boxing background, but John was a massive boxing hero in the country and helped bring attention to The Emerald of Equator. Although widely viewed by those in the west as a stay at home champion, holding the WBA title hostage John's career saw him travel numerous times to defend his title. In fact he would defend his belt 3 times in Japan, 3 times in Australia, twice in the US and twice in Singapore. Whilst we suspect most fans have seen his two bouts with Rocky Juarez in the US, there is a lot that we don't expect fans to know about "The Dragon", so today we bring you getting the 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Chris John 1-Chris John is the second older of 4 siblings born to Johan Tjahjadi, aka Tjia Foek Sem, and Maria Warsini. 2-John's father, Johan Tjahjadi was himself a former boxer, albeit an amateur boxer, and was the trainer for both Chris and his younger brother. 3-According to some reports in 1999, when John fought Muhammad Alfaridzi, the future world champion was in bad physical condition. Not only did he suffer a broken nose during the bout but he has also, reportedly, discussed the fact that he was suffering from headaches brought on by vertigo through the bout. 4-Whilst it's well known that John is one of only 4 Indonesian world champions, along with Elly Pical, Nico Thomas and Muhammad Rachman he does hold a few notables from his reign. He's not only the longest reigning Indonesian world champion, in terms of length of reign and defenses, but he's also the only one to defend a world title against a fellow Indonesian (Daud Yordan), and successfully defend outside of Asia (USA and Australia). In fact he's the only one to successfully defend the title in any country other than Indonesia and Singapore, where Pical also racked up a defense. 5-In 2005 John married former Wushu competitor Anna Maria Megawati. Interestingly John was himself very good at Wushu and won a gold medal at the 1997 South East Asian Games, as well as winning several medals on the domestic scene. 6-In a recent interview John admitted a lack of hobbies, stating that his most common hobby is eating, along with running and cycling. 7-Due to John's fame in Indonesia he has featured in a number of advertising campaigns, including campaigns for energy drinks and an anti-HIV campaign. 8-It's not just adverts and commercial's that John has been in but also a movie! The former boxer was featured in Indonesian action film "Triangle the Dark Side", released in 2016. 9-In 2019 John was appointed to a position within the Komite Olahraga Nasional Indonesia (KONI), the national sports body of Indonesia. The position was "Deputy IV Chairperson of the Field of Foreign Cooperation, Media and Public Relations." 10-Also in 2019 John took part in a fights with NTT governor Viktor B Laiskodat and Imam Nahrawi, a Minister in Indonesia. Although these were both years after John's last fight it was clear he still had the skills and sharpness, even if he was well out of shape in both of them. We've included footage of both these exhibitions below.
We finally finish off our look at current Asian rankings this week with a look at the Heavyweight division, which surprisingly a lot, lot deeper than both the Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight divisions. The reality is that the division still isn't amazing, and it actually a truly frustrating one, but is a lot deeper than the two division's we've just mentioned.
1-Zhang Zhilei (21-0, 16) The leading Asian Heavyweight right now is Chinese veteran Zhang Zhilei, who has proven himself more in the professional ranks than anyone else from the area. He's 37 years old now, and has likely missed the boat of a major fight. Despite that he's very talented, looks very natural in the ring and is a very skilled, surprisingly quick boxer-puncher. Sadly his best win so far is his 2019 victory over Andriy Rudenko and given his age it's unlikely we'll see him really taking on anyone big before his body begins to break down and retirement calls. Interestingly there had been talk of him fighting Anthony Joshua but that talk now looks to be completely dead. 2-Bakhodir Jalolov (6-0, 6) We stick with giants as we go to US based Uzbek giant Bakhodir Jalolov. At the moment Jalolov hasn't fully committed to the professional ranks, hence why he has only fought 6 times in the professionals since his debut in May 2018. He has, however, been busy in the amateurs and in 2019 he won the World Amateur Championships and clearly has been staying busy. He is a big hope for the 2020, or should that be 2021, Olympics. At the age of 25, he turns 26 later this month, Jalolov has time on his side, he's huge, very skilled, a big puncher and has surprising fluidity for such a big man. We'd love to see him fully commit to the professional ranks, and when he does he's going to be a big star. 3-Ivan Dychko (9-0, 9) Another giant, and former amateur standout, is Ivan Dychko, a Kazakh with so much potential that many tipped him as a major star when he turned professional in 2017. Sadly his amateur credentials are now looking like a part of history and in the 3 years that Dychko has been a professional he has really just has frustration after frustration. He's a proper giant, at around 6'9", a smooth operator with power, speed and skills, and like Jalolov is very fluid for such a big man. Sadly inactivity, bouts falling through, poor competition and nothing really going his way has left him really feeling like a man with lost potential. His biggest win to date was his 2019 victory over Ray Austin and it feels like his career should be a long, long way further than it is. A talent, but a talent that is being badly wasted. 4-Mahammadrasul Majidov (2-0, 2) Another Asian former amateur stand out is Azeri banger Mahammadrasul Majidov. The 33 year old looks like to be fast tracked, given his age and links to Matchroom, and has got the strong amateur background to be moved rapidly through the ranks. Sadly Majidov turned professional too late to see what he can really do and really build a professional standing, though he is blessed with brutal power, under-rated skills and frightening physical strength. Given that Majidov was never the quickest we don't think he'll age quickly, but we do feel he's turned pro too young to get the experience he needs to reach the top of the sport. Fingers crossed, however, that Majidov's professional career will light a fire under the backsides of top Azeri amateur to turn professional when they still have time to make a mark on the pros. 5-Zhan Kossobutskiy (13-0, 12) Technically Zhan Kossobutskiy has done more than most in this list, and is more proven as a professional than almost everyone in this top 10. Despite that he's not looking like the natural talent that a Dychko or Jalolov has. Instead he's looked a bit raw, and has been taking on fighters generally on short notice. Despite the complaints about his competition 31 year old has been busy, with 4 fights in 2019, including a career best win over the then 15-0 Agron Smakici for a minor IBF title. Given his age, and now experience, we expect to see him step up this year, especially he's now backed be a rather strong promotional team. We expect to see Kossobutskiy fighting at a higher level, but it's hard to see him getting a world title fight any time soon. 6-Ruslan Myrsatayev (7-0, 6) Another Kazakh making his way into our top 10 is Ruslan Myrsatayev, who is 35 years old and has likely missed the bout to make an impact at a higher level. His best win to date is a KO win over British veteran Danny Williams last year, and since then he has seen his KO run come to an end, being taken 8 rounds by Yury Bykhautsou. Although not the most talented Myrsatayev is a fight with heavy hands, and a decent work rate, but nothing exceptional and we could easily see him losing to fighters below him who make the most of his slowness. From here on we expect him to slow further and really only expect him to slide down the rankings, and not do much of note. Again a shame he turned pro so late as he could have been in some interesting fights just a few years ago. 7-Kyotaro Fujimoto (21-2, 13) Former unified Japanese, OPBF and WBO Asia Pacific champion Kyotaro Fujimoto is one of the more well known names on this list. He was a K1 fighter, the first Japanese national champion in a general and a man splattered by Daniel Dubois last year in the UK. Sadly he's also a man who was looking like a big fish in a little pond. Technically he's actually not a bad fighter, but he's also not a particularly impressive one. He's often negative in the ring, relying on his speed and movement, sadly when he's facing a quicker fighter that big advantage is neutralised and he lacks the power to get respect of opponents. It's great to see a Japanese Heavyweight try and do something on a bigger stage, but the reality is that Fujimoto hasn't got the toughness, chin, size or power to make a mark against the better fighters, even the better Asian fighters. 8-Ryu Ueda (9-1-1, 5) It's hard to know how good Ryu Ueda can become, but at the moment his ceiling looks low. He's the current Japanese Heavyweight champion, claiming the title last year when he beat Kotatsu Takehara in their second bout. He looks the part physically, and is a big, athletic looking guy, but sadly he's relatively uncoordinated and when he gets in the ring the natural athletic ability one would assume he has is lacking. He doesn't look comfortable in the ring. At the age of 28 there is room for improvement, but it's hard to see him improving much and he really is lucky the Japanese scene is very weak at the division. 9-Eric Pen (6-0, 5) American born Cambodian Eric Pen is a very interesting fighter in some ways, but like many Asian Heavyweights his potential to make a mark at the higher levels is very, very limited. Pen is the current WBA Asia champion but his competition so far has been dire and his last win, over Alexander Bajawa came against a very out of shape fighter. It's impossible to know how good Pen is given how easily matched he's been. Saying that however we would love to see him fight Ueda in what would, on paper, be a big step up in class for Pen. 10-Yunlong Shi (1-0, 1) Chinese Heavyweight Yunlong Shi might not have been a success in WSB but he impressed in his professional boxing debut last year, stopping Pawel Sowik in 2 rounds in Poland. Unlike many fighters on this list he's actually based in European, with a Polish team behind him. It's hard to know just how good Shi is, but we were impressed by his debut, and wouldn't be betting against him against Pen or Ueda. It's still very early in his career and he looks like someone to actually be quite excited about. Again very, very early days, but he has size and skills, and on his debut he showed decent power, albeit against a very limited opponent. It's sad to think about the all the boxers that have murdered over the years, whether they were still active fighters or had retired at the time. There has been such a long list of murdered boxers, and rather sadly that list seems to be growing every year. Today we look at one such fighter as we talk about former Korean amateur stand out Jee Yong Ju, who had a brilliant amateur career in the 1960's and 1970's and became a local hero in Wonju. He was someone who had so much ability and promise at a very young age, and had the potential to leave a huge mark on the sport, but never turned professional. Instead he chose to focus on bringing through the next wave of Korean fighters. In the end it wasn't boxing that got him killed, but he was someone who we felt deserved more attention than he's gotten, and a chance to have his story told to a wider audience.
As we're going to explain not only was Jee Yong Ju murdered, but prior to that it appears his life had been a tough one, which we'll get on to, with a host of out of the ring issues affecting him. Some of those were out of his hands, others were his own doing, but he is certainly not a happy tale for fans of the sport. Born in December 1948 Jee Yong Ju showed talent at a young age, despite some suggesting he was too small to box. Stood at just 158cm, around 5'2", he was seen as small, too small to be a star in the sport. He was however born at the right time, and he managed to compete at the 1968 Olympics in the Light Flyweight division. The division was actually making it's Olympic debut, being a new weight for the Mexico games, meaning he really did come along at the right time, at least in that respect. Fighting at the 48KG division in the 1968 games the 19 year old Jee Yong Ju shone. He stopped Douglas Ogada in his first bout in the, before taking decisions over Soviet fighter Viktor Zaporozhets and local fighter Alberto Morales, from Mexico. Those wins booked the Korean a place in the semi-finals and a guaranteed medal. In his Olympic semi-final the Korean youngster dominated Polish great Hubert Skrzypczak, who had become European amateur Flyweight champion in 1967, and is still regarded as one of the greatest Polish amateurs of all time. The Korean out pointed Skrzypczak 4-1 to book his place in the final, where he faced Venezuelan Francisco Rodriguez, and lost a close, and controversial, decision. The Koreans claimed that Rodriguez had got away with a headbutt in the third round en route to a 3-2 win over Jee Yong Ju. Regardless of the controversy Jee Yong Ju had shined and looked good in taking one of South Korea's two medals, along with Chang Kyou-chul who took bronze at Bantamweight. Despite only being 19 he had beaten the local star, and the top man in Europe, the future looked great. Just 2 years after his Olympic success Jee Yong Ju shined again in the amateurs, winning the Gold medal at the Asian Games in Bangkok, in the Flyweight division. Following on from his success high ranking people in Wonju had made promises to Jee Yong Ju to help support his career and build a gym for him in his home town. The hope was that the youngster was going lead the area in a sporting revolution. Sadly that never happened. Their was money raised for the fighter, which was apparently over ₩7,000,000, but by the time the money was set to be put towards the gym much of it had vanished, with only ₩1,500,000 left. That was simply not enough to do what they needed with. It was said the money had been taken by fraud with accusations flying around. They included stories that politicians had taken some and speculation was that other people had used the money incorrectly. Whatever it was it destroyed Ju's hopes, apparently leaving him a heart broken fighter. Sadly the disappointment of the financial backing falling apart ended up sending Jee Yong Ju to alcohol and he would begin to drink, and drink. He began to show signs of alcoholism but had the talent to get by, to some extent, until retiring in 1976. The year after he retired Jee Yong Ju began to train fighters at his alma mater, bringing through young fighters before becoming a coach at the national team in 1979. His time there was short after he took responsibility for what one of the fighters did. It's not totally clear what happened, but reports are that a member of the team went AWOL under his watch or that the team failed to shine under his guidance. By then his heart for the sport had gone. He was a broken man, having been let down time and time again. The sport he had loved had began to damage him more and more. Things continued to get worse though and he had been promised a pension for his amateur success, and that turned out to be relatively worth less, making his drinking worse. There was then discussions as to whether he should even get the pension at all given the money was feeding his alcohol addiction. Sadly on August 20th 1985 Jee Yong Ju had a falling out with neighbour. Unsurprisingly Jee Yong Ju had been drinking. The neighbour went grabbed a weapon before stabbing Jee Yong Ju 3 or 4 times. Over the days that follow Jee Yong Ju would die from his injuries, apparently suffering with them for 5 days before succumbing to them. Jee Yong Ju's death would leave a 9 child fatherless and his 32 year wife a window. Sadly for the man once seen as the hero of Wonju this was a really sad and depressing end to his life. There was a cloud of corruption hanging over his head, and his in ring success was sadly over shadowed by what he could have done had the backing not been removed from his career and had he not found alcohol as a solution to his problems. Thankfully Jee Yong Ju's memory lives on and their was a statue erected in his honour in the 1990's. A gym was also opened in the 00's to try and plant the seeds of boxing in Wonju. Sadly the area hasn't had a major boxing star since the gym was opened, but, fingers crossed that the downfall of Jee Yong Ju can turn into positives one day. Jee Yong Ju's boxing career should have been longer, should have been more successful and should have helped spur on a generation of Korean talent. He had the skills and ability to be a bigger story. Sadly however his death, his downfall and the corruption that surround the gym he was promised make up the bigger story. Korean boxing has long mistreat it's fighters and sadly Jee Yong Ju was just another of those many fighters chewed up and spat out. Shocks in boxing can be strange things when we look back on them. Today we look at a bout that, at the time, was a monstrous upset but now, more than a decade on, the newer fans to the sport may not even realise this bout was an upset. In fact many new fans will look back on this and think it little more than a coming out performance, when the reality is that it was a massive upset that helped put a previously rather unknown fighter on the map. Big time. This bout, from 2007, was a huge upset, but on reflection that can be easily forgotten. Date July 7th 2007 Venue Harbour Yard Arena, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA Nonito Donaire (17-1, 10) Vs Vic Darchinyan (28-0, 22) In one corner was the "Raging Bull" Vic Darchinyan, an unbeaten Australian based Armenian fighter who had been ripping up the Flyweight division. The Darchinyan wasn't just 28-0 but had been destroying his competition. He had claimed the IBF title in 2004, when he stopped the then 30-0 Irene Pacheco and had made 6 defenses of the title. From those 6 defenses 5 were by stoppage with the one decision being a technical decision over Donaire's brother Glenn Donaire. The 31 year old was aggressive, strong, tough and in great form with some even ranking him in the pound for pound rankings. Not only was Darchinyan destructive but he was lout, brash, arrogant and getting the Flyweight division a lot of attention outside of the usual markets for the little men, Asia and Latin America. Whilst Darchinyan was seen as a star of the lower weights not too much was known about the 24 year old Nonito Donaire. He had mostly been fighting as a Super Flyweight but dropped the extra 3lbs to face off with Darchinyan and had lost once, early in his career. Although Donaire was a Filipino he had fought most of his career in the US, but had done so against some relatively weak opposition. In his first 18 bouts the most noteworthy opponent he had faced was probably Ilido Julio, a one time fringe contender, or Kaichon Sor Vorapin, who had fought for a world title in 2005. Neither of whom were particularly notable. Donaire was seen as the next victim for Darchinyan. The next man for him to chew up and spit out as he continued to steamroll his way into the bigger money fights. Despite that being the view going in no one had managed to convince Donaire that he was there to lose. From the opening round it was clear Donaire was full of confidence, starting fairly fast and letting his shots go early. It was an unexpected tactic from Donaire, but one that seemed to make a statement of intent. Darchinyan might be the man with the reputation as the danger man but Donaire was going to try to bully the bully. Dachinyan had moments in the first round, but it was a much better round for Donaire than the unbeaten champion. Despite the good opening round from Donaire we saw Darchinyan start to work his way into the bout. Donaire continued to punish Darchinyan in the second round, though it was a competitive bout as Darchinyan started to find something of a groove. Round 3 however was a very comfortable one from Donaire who was landing big counters when Darchinyan rushed in and controlled the tempo at range without taking the risks he had in the early rounds. The most notable thing about round 3 however was that we saw Darchinyan rocked, hard, by a left hook. Sporting a cut from round 3 Darchinyan was in a hole as we entered round 4, and unfortunately for the champion he was being timed and countered over and over. Worryingly for Darchinyan his much relied upon left hand was landing but having no effect at all on Donaire, who was taking things with no issue at all. Darchinyan continued to struggle in round 5, being picked off by some very solid shots. Despite them landing clean Darchinyan was taking them well. And then he didn't. Midway through round 5 Darchinyan rushed in and was caught by an absolute beauty of a left hook. He hit the canvas hard but managed to get back to his feet just as the referee counted 7, stumbling head first into the ropes as he did so. Moments later Darchinyan was flat back on his back. Although he had got to his feet he hadn't been able to remain on them. Soon afterwards he had his team around him whilst Donaire and his team celebrated. Amazing since this bout both men have done great things. Donaire is still a relevant fighter today, reaching the WBSS Bantamweight more than 12 years after this win. By the time he had that WBSS final had won world titles up to Featherweight and almost certainly booked a place in the Hall of Fame. As for Darchinyan he went on to unify the 3 major titles at Super Flyweight, and was a notable contender at Bantamweight. His last fight came in 2017, when he was 41 and although perhaps not a popular choice, he certainly deserves to find his name on the ballot, in the future, for the Hall of Fame. Today we return to looking at a title in our Did You Know Series, as we look at the Japanese Welterweight title. The belt doesn't have the strongest lineage but does have an interesting one dating back over 70 years with some explosive title fights and several notable champions.
Just for general guidance we are only considering reigns and fighters recognised by the JBC, so the early earliest title bouts, including those from the 1920's and 1930's, aren't considered here. So here is "Did You know...The Japanese Welterweight title". -The first Japanese Welterweight champion, as recognised by the JBC, was Ichiro Kawada who held the title from September 1947 to April 1949. Whilst his reign does pre-date the JBC being formed, the linage of the title does start with him and can be tracked directly from him to the foundation of the JBC in the early 1950's. -Despite being a champion from more than a year Kawada was dethroned without making a single defense. His reign was ended by Tatsumi Hachiro. Hachiro's reign saw him make 4 defenses before losing the belt in May 1951, a little over 2 years after winning it. -Hachiro's 4 defenses of the title stood as an unmatched record from 1951 to 1970, when Ryu Sorimachi managed to notch his 4th defense. -Hachiro wasn't just the second champion but was also the first to reclaim the title, defeating Takeo Ugo in 1952 to have his second reign. Incidentally Ugo would himself become a 2-time champion in 1954. -On the subject of 2-time champions 5 of the first 7 champions had 2 reigns. They were Hachiro, Ugo, Teruo Onuki, Teruo Matusyama and Kenji Fukuchi. -In regards to multiple reigns the only 3-time champion is Makoto Watanabe, who had all 3 of his reigns in the 1960's. -Shoji Tsujimoto, who held the belt from October 30th 1972 to April 28th 1978. This reign was over 2000 days! During his lengthy reign Tsujimoto set a then record number of defenses, defending the belt 12 times. -Tsujimoto's record for most defenses was broken less than a decade later when Junya Kushikino recorded 13 defense in 1984, a record that has now been broken it's self. What's notable about Kushinko's reign is that he made his first 10 defenses all by T/KO, a record that still stands for any Japanese title more than 20 years later. -Sadly for Kushinko his own total defenses record of the belt was beaten in 1992 by Hiroyuki Yoshino, who made 14 defenses of the belt, a record that still stands today. -Despite the belt having had 4 double digit reigns no champion has managed more than 6 defenses since Jintoku Sato vacated the belt in 1996. -The belt has had 2 provisional champions, both since the year 2000. One of these was Hiroyuki Maeda and the other was Daisuke Sakamoto. -The first "KO1" in a bout for the belt occurred in Junya Kushinko's first defense, back in 1982, when he stopped Koji Sasagawa. -Hiroyuki Yoshino managed 3 "KO1" defenses during his long reign -Tadashi Yuba is the only man to defend the belt with a "T/KO 1", lose the belt with a "T/KO 1" and to win the belt with a "T/KO 1". In fact he was involved in 4 title bouts that didn't last a round, including a 40 second loss to Teruyoshi Omagari, which saw Yuba being dropped 3 times. -In December 2010 the Japanese and OPBF titles were unified by Yo Inoue. The remained unified until the second half of 2012 with Akinori Watanabe holding the unified belts after beating Inoue. -At the time of writing there have been 182 bouts for the belt. These have included 180 bouts for the regular title and 2 for the interim title. There has also been 2 bouts to unify interim and regular titles. -From the 184 title bouts we have had 5 draws. The first of those was in 1950 and the most recent in 2010. -The most recent "TKO 3" in a bout for the title was in January 1997 -Sadly no one who has ever won the title has gone on to win a world title. Saying that however several have fought for world titles, including Akio Kameda who had two world title bouts and Hisao Minami. |
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With this site being pretty successful so far we've decided to open up about our own views and start what could be considered effectively an editorial style opinion column dubbed "Thinking Out East" (T.O.E). Archives
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