October 4th

October 4th isn't an historic day in Asian boxing but it is a thoroughly interesting one, especially for fans who remember 2003.

Before we get to 2003 lets just remember that back in 1975 South Korea's Jae Doo Yuh successfully defended the OPBF Middleweight title as he stopped Nobuyoshi Ozaki. On paper that doesn't sound amazingly impressive but it needs to be noted that Yuh was actually the WBA Light Middleweight world champion whilst also holding the OPBF belt at 160lbs and for a while switched between the two with notable success showing that he was genuinely talented at both 154lbs and 160lbs.

In 2003 we had 3 bouts of note on the same show as Teiken put on a stacked card.

One of those bouts saw Hideki Todaka defeat Leo Gamez by very narrow split decision to claim the WBA interim Bantamweight title. This bout was the second meeting between the two and saw Todaka avenging a loss from 3 years earlier though his reign as champion was short lived and he lost the belt in his very next fight as he was defeated, via split decision, by Julio Zarate.

Another bout on the same card saw Hidenobu Honda come up short in a WBA Super Flyweight title challenge as he dropped a decision to the monstrously hard hitting Alexander Munoz. Munoz had come into this biout with a eprfect 23-0 (23) record though couldn't get rid of the tough Honda. This was the second world title challenge by Honda and although he was tough he was unable to capture anything more than a Japanese title, something he did way back in 1996 at Light Flyweight.

Arguably the most interesting of the three bouts ended in a draw as Veeraphol Sahaprom and Toshiaki Nishioka fought to their second draw. The bout was the 3rd meeting between the two great fighters and as with their previous 2 meeting Sahaprom managed to defend the WBC Bantamweight title. These two would fight again just 5 months later and Sahaprom would show his dominance over Nishioka with a decision win in their 4th and final encounter, that win left Sahaprom as the series winner with a record of 2-0-2.

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

---