Watanabe Gym
When we talk about the most illustrious gyms in Japanese boxing one name that always deserved to be mentioned is the excellent Watanabe Gym. It's not the best or most well known but it is a gym that continually turns out notable fighters and champions and has done since it was set up in the 1980's.
Founded in 1981 by Hitoshi Watanabe the gym has become one of the most stable gyms and is located in the Higashi Gotanda area of Tokyo, near to the Gotanda Station.
Although the gym wasn't an immediate success it began to flourish at the end of the 1980's and developed title holders like Hiroyuki Yoshino who won his first title, the Japanese Welterweight title, in 1988. Yoshino would later go on to claim the OPBF Welterweight and Japanese Light Middleweight titles whilst also challenging for the WBA Light Welterweight world title.
On the same day that Yoshino claimed his first title stablemate Takeshi Yamato claimed a Japanese title and from then on the success really helped the gym move on to the next level with more and more top level fighters joining the gym
Founded in 1981 by Hitoshi Watanabe the gym has become one of the most stable gyms and is located in the Higashi Gotanda area of Tokyo, near to the Gotanda Station.
Although the gym wasn't an immediate success it began to flourish at the end of the 1980's and developed title holders like Hiroyuki Yoshino who won his first title, the Japanese Welterweight title, in 1988. Yoshino would later go on to claim the OPBF Welterweight and Japanese Light Middleweight titles whilst also challenging for the WBA Light Welterweight world title.
On the same day that Yoshino claimed his first title stablemate Takeshi Yamato claimed a Japanese title and from then on the success really helped the gym move on to the next level with more and more top level fighters joining the gym
Although the gym had been around since the 1980's it's been the last 10 years that it has emerged as a real force to be reckoned with and in that time they have lead fighters like Shin Ono, Ryoichi Taguchi, Konosuke Tomiyama and Rikiya Fukuhara to titles, with many of their top fighters getting world title fights.
Despite the success of the gym it was surprisingly late to develop it's first world champion which eventually came in 2009 with female fighter Naomi Togashi who won the WBC female Light Flyweight title in 2009. The following year saw the emergence of Takashi Uchiyama who claimed the WBA Super Featherweight title and from then on things have gone from strength to strength to strength for the gym which has also lead Kohei Kono to two world titles and helped Akio Shibata unify the Japanese and OPBF Middleweight titles. Whilst still not a huge gym like Teiken it's a gym that has really done things slowly and gradually. It's built up a solid foundation based on good teaching, a great ethos at the gym and fighters that get on. They are there to support each other and we often see the top fighters from the gym supporting each other even if they aren't necessarily on the same card together. As well as the fighters mentioned above other notable fighters to have come from the Watanabe gym have included: Toshiharu Kayama (Japanese Welterweight champion 1998-2000) Kazuhiro Ryuko (Japanese Super Flyweight champion 1999-2000, and OPBF Super Flyweight champion 2000) Jun Toriumi (OPBF Bantamweight champion 2005) Koji Kawamura (OPBF Super Featherweight champion 2010) For those interested in visiting the gym the address is: 141-0022 Tokyo Higashi Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, 5-28-12 Watanabe Boxing Building 3 ~ 5F The contact number for domestic calls is: 03-5449-3278 And the website address is www.watanabegym.com From what we understand the gym do allow public sessions that anyone can join in with and actually charge a 1 month fee allowing you to use the gym as much as you want inside the month. The prices are affordable and the equipment is viewed very highly. (All images courtesy of Watanabe Gym) (Video courtesy ofbazooka9303's channel) |
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