August 24th

It's strange when we et really busy days though in the case of August 24th it's been so busy we could easily have had 2 or even 3 of these short pieces done.

In 1974 Filipino puncher Ben Villaflor retained his WBA Super Featherweight and made light work of Japan's Yasutsune Uehara. The fight came just 10 months after Villaflor had scored his career defining KO over Kuniaki Shibata to reclaim the title, and once again he proved to be a thorn in the side of Japanese fighters. Villaflor would hold the title in until 1976 when he lost it to Puerto Rico's Samuel Serrano and retired from the sport. Incidentally in 1980 Serrano lost the belt to Uehara in a major upset.

Just 8 years after the Villaflor/Uehara fight saw the debut of one of Thailand's greatest boxers, Samart Payakaroon. Samart, an oddly handsome looking fighter, had transitioned from Muay Thai and began his boxing career with a 10 round victory over former world champion Netrnoi Sor Vorasingh. Whilst this was the start for Payakaroon it was sadly the end for Netrnoi who died soon afterwards in a motorbike accident ending his life at just 23 years.

Whilst the date has been a busy one it hasn't always been a successful one and in 1991 Chun Huh fought, unsuccessfully, in his only world title fight, dropping a lop sided decision to the great Daniel Zaragoza in a WBC Super Bantamweight title fight. Exactly 12 years after Huh's disappointment we saw Japan's Hiroyuki Hisataka lose a WBO Super Flyweight title fight in Argentina to the great Omar Andres Narvaez.

As for female boxing this date certainly stands out for South Korean females. with August 24th 2007 being the notable date. The day saw two world title fights in Seoul and both were won by South Koreans. One of those women was Ju Hee Kim who successfully won the WBA Light Flyweight title with a 7th round TKO against Yuki Sakurada the other woman was Cho Rong Sun who successfully defended her WBA Minimumweight crown against Lin Jin Mei. Kim, the inaugural WBA female Light Flyweight champion, never actually defended her belt though Son did make one further defence before losing in Japan to Etsuko Tada.

One finale note for August 24th is Japanese based American fighter Charlie Ota who was born in 1981. We know Charlie has re-tweeted some of the stuff we have published so we'd like to wish him a very happy birthday!

(Picture, of Sirimongkol, courtesy of boxrec.com)

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