October 31st

October 30th has been a busy day in Asian boxing with numerous important fights falling on this date over the years.

The first that we stumbled on came in 1971 when the exciting Koichi Wajima first became a world champion. Wajima, a rather unique fighter to watch, took a 15 round split decision over Italian Carmelo Bossi to claim the WBA and WBC Light Middleweight title. For Bossi this was his final fight as a professional whilst for Wajima his reign would last until 1974 when he dethroned by Oscar Albarado. Wajima would avenge the loss to Albarado in a rematch and would later become a 3-time world champion before his retirement in the late 1970's. 

The next bout of note came in 1989 when the amazing Khaosai Galaxy took a 12th round TKO victory over Kenji Matsumura in the second meeting between the two men. For Matsumura this was his second failed world title attempt in less than 7 months and he would then suffer subsequent world title defeats to Sung Kil Moon, in what was a fantastically fun bout to watch, and Katsuya Onizuka. For Galaxy however this was the 12th defense of his title and amazing his 10th that ended in a stoppage. Galaxy's reign continued until his retirement in the early 1990's when he retired as the champion.

Having just mentioned his name it's worth noting that South Korean great Sung Kil Moon also fought on this day, in 1992. Moon, one of the greatest and most exciting Korean's of all time, made the 7th defense of the WBC Super Flyweight as he over-came American challenger Greg Richardson with a majority decision. For Richardson this was a second successive loss following a 10th round stoppage loss to Japan's Joichiro Tatsuyoshi 13 months earlier. Sadly it was the start of the end for both and Moon would only manage another 2 defenses before losing his title to Jose Luis Bueno in November 1993.

More recently, 1999, we saw South Korean banger Jon-Kwon Baek narrowly out point Mongolian tough guy Lakva Sim to claim the WBA Super Featherweight title with a very narrow split decision. The bout was effectively decided bya point deduction from Sim who was deducted in the 8th round for use of the elbows. For Sim this ended his his first reign as world champion which had lasted a little more than 4 months. Unfortunately Baek's reign wasn't much longer. The South Korean managed a sole successful defense, fighting to a 12 round draw with compatriot Kyu-Chul Choi before losing the belt to talented Cuban Joel Casamayor in May 2000.

(Image, of Moon, courtesy of boxrec.com)

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