 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 Kenji Yonekura to Ryoichi Taguchi. 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-One of the most famous Japanese promoters is Kenji Yonekura, a former Olympian who later went on to promoter a number of world champions. Prior to become a promoter, with the legendary Yonekura Gym, Yonekura had challenged Flyweight champion Pascual Perez, who eventually lost the Flyweight title to Pone Kingpetch. 2-The talented Pone Kingpetch lost the Flyweight crown thrice. The first of those reigns came when he lost to Japanese legend Fighting Harada, before later losing to Harada's close friend Hiroyuki Ebihara and Italian Salvatore Burruni.  3-Fighting Harada wasn't the only fighter in the family with his brother, Ushiwakamaru Harada, also being a decent fighter. Ushiwakamaru fought a number of notable opponents and actually scored a win over Soo Hwan Hong.
4-Korean fighter Soo Hwan Hong was the first ever WBA Super Bantamweight champion, pulling himself off the canvas 4 times to stop Hector Carrasquilla. In the first WBC Super Bantamweight title fight the loser was Waruinge Nakayama. 5-Waruinge Nakayama may have lost in his Super Bantamweight world title fight, losing to Rigoberto Riasco, but he did win the Japanese Super Bantamweight title beating Seiichi Eto in 1975. Nakayama made 4 defenses of the Japanese Super Bantamweight title, as did Hidenori Otake, who also came up short in his world title efforts. 6-Hidenori Otake competed in the 2007 East Japan Rookie of the Year. Otake actually lost to Manabu Koguchi, however one man who won on that show, which took place on November 4th 2007, was Ryoichi Taguchi!
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When we talk about Japanese fighters who became fan favourites away from home few rival Yoshihiro Kamegai, who really made his name more in the west in the final few years of his career. The tough man from the Teiken gym was involved in some incredible bouts and whilst he wasn't the greatest boxer of all time he also knew how to put on a show with his incredible chin, work rate and will to win. Whilst we all know Kamegai was a tough guy, there is a lot fans likely don't know about the talented Japanese warrior and with that in mind we look to bring 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Yoshihiro Kamegai! 1-Kamegai went 57-12 (31) in the amateurs and won 3 amateur titles on the Japanese domestic scene, including 2 in 2004, the year before his professional debut. 2-Walk out song was "Endless Journey" (終わりなき旅) by Mr Children, which we've included at the bottom of this article 3-In his 6th professional bout Kamegai was involved in rather remarkable scene where veteran referee Ukrid Sarasas was dropped, hard, by Kamegai's opponent Yasuhiro Kondo. Ukrid would later be a judge for Kamegai's sole defense of the OPBF Welterweight title in 2014 over Jung Hoon Yang. 4-In May 2010 Kamegai won the East Japan Boxing Association MVP of the month, for the previous month. Interestingly the Fighting Sprit award winner for that same month was Nihito Arakawa, two men are were both known for having bouts when they stepped foot in a US ring! 5-Kamegai's reign as the Japanese Light Welterweight champion ended in 2011 when he was forced to cancel a bout, at late notice, against Shinya Nagase. The bout was pencilled in for February 5th 2011, with Kamegai pulling out on February 3rd due to suffering from influenza and vacating the title as an apology. In fact both of Kamegai's title reigns, as the Japanese Light Welterweight and OPBF Welterweight champion, ended with him vacating. 6-During his professional career Kaegai won two of the Japanese annual boxing awards. For 2010 he, along with Ryo Miyazaki, won the new-comer award and in 2016he won the Best fight of the Year award for his April clash with Jesus Soto Kareass. Thsi was also shared alongside Shinsuke Yamanaka's September clash with Anselmo Moreno. 7-Strangely Kamegai never won a bout that went beyond 10 rounds, going 0-2 in 12 round bouts, and was actually 1-6-2 in bouts that went 10 or more rounds, winning only the first one he had back in 2007 against Daisuke Hata. On a somewhat connected note he scored stoppages in rounds 1-9 8-He adopted the "Maestrito", nickname from Mexican fighter Jose Luis Lopez, himself a former WBO Welterweight champion. He was later given the nickname "Corazón De Acero", or "Steel Heart" in English, by Oscar De La Hoya 9-For Kamegai's bout with Miguel Cotto the Japanese fighter got a reported $192,000 as his purse compared to Cotto's $750,000, meaning Kamegai got just over 25% of Cotto's purse 10-From his 10 bouts in the US Kamegai went 3-5-2 (3). He won his US debut, on October 1st 2011, won against Oscar Godoy, in December 2014 and won the rematch with Jesus Soto Karass in September 2017. In Japan however Kamegai went 24-0 (21). Whilst that down to his competition being much tougher in the US than it was in Japan, it's still interesting to see just how different his results were in the two counties. Extra Fact - Despite his losses in the US Kamegai seemed to have a lasting effect on opponents he fought Stateside. Greg Vendetti, Miguel Cotto, Robert Guerrero all lost in their bout immediately following their wins over Kamegai, whilst Alfonso Gomez never fought after beating him. The only man to avoid this curse was Johan Perez, though he would go 7-6-1 following the Kamegai bout. Similarly the two men who earned a draw with Kamegai, Jorge Silva and Jesus Soto Karass, lost in their bout immediately following their clash with Kamegai. Boxing has had a lot of hard luck tales, and today we look at one that is a real and genuine inspiration from a fighter who came from a harsh background, but went on to inspire not only fight fans but also children from a similar background. In fact he continues to inspire people even now, well after his retirement from the sport.
Boxing has had a lot of fighters who have come from a harsh background and have had to carve out their careers. Hiroyuki Sakamoto is one such fighter. Sakamoto was born at the end of 1970 and sadly his parents divorced when he was young and essentially abandoned him and his brother. Hiroyuki was left in an infants home, then an orphanage, then moved into a relatives home along with his brother. The family members he was left with didn't do a great job, in fact Sakamoto and his brother were both horribly mistreat when they were young and after his brother collapsed due to malnutrition the two would end up in a children's home in Fukuoka. Despite being mistreat Sakamoto found boxing, watching it on TV as a youngster. It was due to that that he went from Fukuoka to Tokyo, where he would make his debut at the age of 20. As a professional fighter Sakamoto, who was later dubbed the "Japanese Duran", found success quickly. He would win his first 6 bouts by KO. His initial part of his winning run saw him not only going to 6-0 (6) but continue beyond the run of stoppages to Sakamoto winning the East Japan Rookie of the Year, in December 1992, and then the All Japan Rookie of the Year the following February. The winning run continued right through 1993, which saw Sakamoto stopping Rick Yoshimura for the Japanese Lightweight title, and into May 1995. By then he was 24 years old, 19-0 (14) and building a reputation as a burgeoning star in Japan. Sadly though he failed to make it to 20-0, being dumped on the canvas twice by Juan Martin Coggi and falling to 19-1 with a decision loss to the Argentinian veteran. The loss was a temporary set back, and Sakamoto would get back on the horse, picking up two more wins before the year was over, including a big win in the US over Jeff Mayweater and a win over Roger Borreros for the OPBF Lightweight title. Sakamoto's win over Mayweather helped him rebuild following the loss to Coggi and in 1997, when he was then 27-1 (19) he got his first world title, facing off with WBC Lightweight champion Stevie Johnston. Sakamoto put up a great effort but was clearly second best against "Lil' but Bad", who was unbeaten at the time. Despite a scorecard of Ray Solis, in Sakamoto's favour, it seemed clear that the Japanese fighter hadn't done enough. Sakamoto bounced back from the loss to Johnston with a trio of wins to earn his second world title fight, and again he lost a decision to a more skilled fighter, this time Cesar Bezan in another bout for the WBC Lightweight title. Sakamoto's hope of becoming a world champion had been dented, but the the flame for world triumph was still there. Following the loss to Bazan we saw Sakamoto bounce back with an easy win over Bert Bado as he began another winning run over some limited opponents. After 5 straight wins he got his third world title shot, a bout with hard hitting Venezuelan Gilberto Serrano. Serrano, the then WBA Lightweight champion, had won the title a few months earlier by stopping Stefano Zoff and was travelling to Japan for his first defense. After about 40 seconds of feeling each other out Sakamoto's power was felt by Serrano who was dropped from what was, pretty much, the first meanignful shot either man landed. Soon afterwards Serrano was down again, and at the end of the round he was in trouble. Sadly however Sakamoto didn't come out of the round unscated, suffering a nasty gash under his eyes. As the bout went on both of Sakamoto's eyes ended up a total mess, forcing the bout to be stopped in round 5, leaving Sakamoto heart broken at world level for the third time. The injuries to Sakamoto needed time to recover, and it would be almost 7 months before he fought again. In the meantime Serrano had returned to Japan and lost the WBA title to another Japanese fighter, the hugely popular Takanori Hatakeyama, who had returned to the ring after almost a year away. After stopping Serrano we saw Hatakeyama state that he wanted to fight Sakamoto, giving Sakamoto the first shot at the title. Sadly for Sakamoto he would end up being stopped in the 10th round of a sensationally brutal fight with Hatakeyama. The fight saw both men going to war, with Sakamoto looking like the bigger puncher, but lacking the movement and defense needed to cope with the more capable Hatakeyama, and then running out of steam and being dropped early in round 10. The fight between Sakamoto and Hatakeyama seemed to pretty much end the best years for both men. Neither man would score a win of note afterwards, with Hatakeyama losing the title soon afterwards and Sakamoto being stopped twice in his following 4 bouts, before retiring in 2007 after a technical draw with a debuting Thai. That draw, the only one of Sakamoto's career, saw him ending his career with a 39-7-1 (29) record. Whilst that could easily have been the end for Sakamoto as a public figure, it turned out to be the exact opposite. It turned out to be the launchpad for much, much more from the former fighter. In 2010 Sakamoto turned his hand from fighting to managing as he set up the SRS Boxing Gym. What could easily have been the "Sakamoto Gym", instead became the Skyhigh RingS" gym, set up with the aim of letting people reach their potential. Those who just see SRS wouldn't know it was even Sakamoto in charge unless they looked into things, with founder and chairman putting people, and students, ahead of himself. In July 2000, prior to facing Hatakeyama, Sakamoto had also set up the Aozora SRS, essentially the Blue Sky Fund, setting this up when he was still fighting. The aim of the blue sky fund was to support children in children's homes, offering things like boxing sessions and talks to the children who had been in the position Sakamoto had been in himself. He was wanting to offer guidance to youngster who found themselves feeling like he had. The Blue Sky Fund could easily have closed when Sakamoto retired but instead it's kept going and kept growing, and in 2017 was awarded the HERO's award "HEROs SPORTSMANSHIP for THE FUTURE", recognising the great work of Sakamoto and the help he and the fund had given. With Sakamoto stating they would be visiting 40 to 50 orphanages a year, with the hope of breaking the chain of negativity related to children in orphanages. The basic philosophy for the fund is simple, "every child is equal" and Sakamoto is looking to prove that. Whilst Sakamoto's dream of becoming a world champion may never have come true, his legacy of helping children will live long after any world title reign would have. The Minimumweight division has often been over-looked by fans in the west, despite a huge number of amazing fights coming from the division since it was created in the 1980's. Likewise the WBO has also been on the end of fans ire since it was created, also in the 1980's. Today however we look to share some interesting facts about the WBO Minimumweight title.
-Amazingly 3 of the first 4 champions and 4 of the first 6, vacated the belt. -The second champion was from the UK, and 2 of the first 7 were from Europe -No fighter from the US has ever won the title. -The most defenses record is held by Ivan Calderon, who defended the title 11 times in total. No one else has double figures, with the nearest having been 6 defenses by Alex Sanchez. The most defenses by an Asian fighter is 4, by Donnie Neites -Having mentioned Alex Sanchez it's worth noting his first defense against the debuting Arturo Mayan, who's only recorded fight was his loss to Sanchez. -Alex Sanchez also notched 3 success T/KO1 wins in bouts for the title. They were his title win and first 2 defenses. -Husni Ray was the first Asian fighter to challenge for the title, losing a split decision in Indonesia to Rafael Torres in 1990. This was actually the only time the title was fought for in Asia until 2007, when Donnie Neites won it in the first all-Asian bout, beating Pornsawan Porpramook -The first Asian to win the title was Filipino Eric Jamili, who won the belt in the UK when he stopped Mickey Cantwell -Merlito Sabillo was the third Asian fighter to hold the title, and was the third from the Philippines. -There first Japanese fighter to hold the title was Katsunari Takayama, who is the only man to be a 2-time champion. -Between December 2014 and July 2018 there were 4 successive fighters from Japan, sharing a combined 5 reigns. These included Takayama, Kosei Tanaka, Tatsuya Fukuhara and Ryuya Yamanaka. -The most recent Asian champion with Vic Saludar, who managed to make just a single successful defense in his 13 month reign. -As of the first 62 title bouts there has been just a single draw, Merlito Sabillo's bout with Carlos Buitrago, and 3 technical decisions. -At the time of writing it is the only Minimumweight world title to have never been won by a Thai.  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 Hideyuki Ohashi to Shinji Takehara! 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-Japanese Hideyuki Ohashi has become well known as one of the most well respected promoters in Asian boxing, prior to becoming a promoter however he was a very successful professional fighter. Interestingly he went to the same University as Shinsuke Yamanaka, who was actually the first graduate from the University to win a world title as Ohashi actually dropped out. 2-During his lengthy reign as the WBC Bantamweight champion Shinsuke Yamanaka scored a stoppage win over former WBC Flyweight champion Malcolm Tunacao.  3-Malcolm Tunacao was only stopped twice during his long career. One of those was the aforementioned loss to Shinsuke Yamanaka and the other was an opening round loss to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, who stopped Tunacao to claim the WBC Flyweight.
4-Talented Thai Pongsaklek Wonjongkam didn't just stop Tunacao inside a round but also his biggest rival, Daisuke Naito. Wonjongkam famously fought Naito 4 times during one of the more notable Flyweight rivalries of recent years. 5-Although Daisuke Naito lost twice to Pongsaklek Wonjongkam he would go on to defeat the Thai in their third bout and fight to a draw with the Thai in their final bout. Another man Naito fought to a draw with was Takefumi Sakata. 6-Whilst Takefumi Sakata isn't a hugely well known name in the West he was a pretty notable fighter in Japan and was one of the stars of the Kyoei. Notably however before he signed for the Kyoei gym he had actually been training at the gym run by former WBA Shinji Takehara! (Images - JPBA) We've all heard of Fighting Harada, arguably the greatest fighter out of Japan and one of boxing's all time greats. What you may not be aware of is that he wasn't the only boxer in the family and his brother was also a professional!
With that in mind, and with coronavirus still affecting the boxing schedule, we've decided to bring you 5 fights you probably didn't know about the Harada fighting family, in a bit of a spin off of our "10 facts you probably didn't know..." series. For those curios there is a "10 facts you probably didn't know about...Fighting Harada" article coming in June. For those who are unaware Fighting Harada's brother was Katsuhiro Harada, better known as Ushiwakamaru Harada. Ushiwakamaru was Fighting Harada's younger sibling, who was a solid fringe contender in the 1960's and 1970's. He was regarded as a genuine talent, but unfortunately cuts limited his success, and he's now pretty much a footnote to hardcore fans outside of Japan. Hopefully with that in mind you can enjoy this little bonus piece! 1-Whilst Fighting Harada is certainly the much more successful of the two brothers it's interesting to note that his brother was the only one of the two men to have won a Japanese title. Fighting Harada went on to win multiple world titles, making his mark at the top of the Flyweight and Bantamweight divisions, but he failed to pick up any lesser titles during his career. Ushiwakamaru Harada on the other hand was a 2-time Japanese Bantamweight and 1-time Japanese Featherweight champion. 2-Despite the Harada brothers both fighting over 60 times, and having careers that over-lapped for around 5 years, they only fought on the same card ONCE. That was was a show in August 1966 in Sapporo that saw Fighting Harada beat Dio Espinosa and Ushiwakamaru Harada defeat Yoshihiro Kawakami. Both Harada's scored their wins by decision. 3-On a similar theme the two brothers have only a couple of shared opponents. One of those was Tsuyoshi Nakamura. Nakamura was beaten in 1961 by Fighting Harada but held Ushiwakamaru Harada to a draw in 1968. The other was Katsuo Saito, who Fighting Harada bet in a 12 round bout in 1965 whilst Ushiwakamaru Harada knocked him out in 2 rounds in 1967 to become the Japanese Bantamweight champion. 4-Rather surprisingly Ushiwakamaru Harada had a longer career. The younger of the two brothers had 70 fights over 11 years and 2 months accounting for 555 rounds. On the other hand Fighting Harada had 62 bouts over his 9 year and 11 month career, accounting for 501 rounds. 5-Both men were managed by the now often forgotten Takeshi Sasazaki, who was a former fighter himself. Sasazki went 73-27-11-3 (27) in his lengthy career that spanned from 1934 to to 1950. He managed both of the brothers out of the still functioning Sasazaki Gym in Tokyo. When we talk about legendary Korean fighters many will mention the name In Chul Baek. Baek was one of the major names in Korean boring in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The big punching Korean ran up a record of 47-3 (43) and became only the second Asian, after rival Chong Pal Park, to claim a Super Middleweight world world title.
Although plenty of fans will recognise his name there is a lot of interesting details of his career and life that really aren't too well known in the West.With that in mind here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about... In Chul Baek 1-On December 7th 1980 Baek won the Korean Rookie of the Year at Middleweight, doing so 3 years after future professional rival Chong Pak Park had done the same thing. 2-Baek won his first 26 bouts in a row by T/KO, an Asian record from a fighter's debut. 3-With 43T/KO's to his name it's surprising to note that Baek failed to score any in round 8. It was the only round that he didn't actually record a stoppage in. Similarly odd is the fact he only scored a single opening round win, and that was way back in his third professional bout! That's even more surprising given he scored 10 stoppages in round 2! 4-Oddly Baek was stripped of the OPBF Light Middleweight title in 1984, after making either 7 defenses. He then reclaimed the vacant title and made 4 more defenses, though never lost it in the ring. In fact he was stripped to end both of his title reigns. 5-Also rather oddly is Baek's record. He was 47-0 (43) in Korea and 0-3 when fighting outside of his homeland, with his losses coming in America, twice, and France. 6-Baek put his first loss, a decision defeat to Sean Mannion, down to a late opponent change. He has been quoted numerous times in the Korean press as stating he was only given 10 days notices of opponent, and wasn't able to prepare for Mannion. 7-On the subject of his losses Baek described Julian Jackson as a great fighter and seemed to admit that no matter what the conditions he wouldn't have beaten the "Hawk". He did however suggest he could have beaten the other two men who beat him. 8-Reportedly by the time Baek fought Christophe Tiozzo in 1990 he wasn't mentally in a great state and had only trained for around 10 days prior to the fight. The lack of trainer had come down to a very serious dispute with his manager and over how money for the bout was to be shared. Had he won against Tiozzo, Korean news sources report that Baek would have been in line for a bout with Tommy Hearns, with an agreement of $1,500,000 said to have been made for the bout. 9-Following his boxing career Baek set up several businesses, though it appears they weren't successful, and reports in Korea were that he was was relative poor by around 2011. 10-Through much of his career Baek was known to be a big drinker, and had reportedly drank before many of his of most meaningful fights, including his final career bout against Tiozzo. After his career was over the alcohol abuse saw him suffering cirrhosis of the liver. The illness lead to other Korean boxers raising money for his treatment in 2011. Larry Merchant once dubbed boxing the "Theater of the Unexpected" and over the years we've seen that phrase prove true on a fairly infrequent, but yet notable, basis. We might not see a "lot" of upsets, but when we see them some are just incredibly big shocks. Today we look at one which is still a result that confounds all understanding of the sport, despite having happened 29 years ago. It featured a man who regularly features in the top 10 listing of his division and a man who ended up losing 25 of his 70 career bouts. This was among the most unexpected shocks we have seen in recent years. Date December 19th 1990 Venue Great Western Forum, Inglewood, California, USA Fighters Rolando Pascua (24-5, 8) Vs Humberto Gonzalez (30-0, 24) Ask anyone to name their Light Flyweight top 10 of all time and Humberto "Chiquita" Gonzalez will be on their list somewhere. Likely in the top 5. Cliff Rold, of Boxing Scene, listed him at #5 in 2009, Scott Levinson for Proboxing-Fans put him at #3 and numerous others have listed him in a similar place. In 1990 he was in his pomp, he had travelled to Korea and beaten Yulk Woo Lee for the WBC title, defended it against Jung Koo Chang and picked up 4 more defenses. He had shown vicious power, great skills and was unbeaten. At the time he was widely regarded as a man who could attract a fan base to the little guys, and was beginning to fight pretty regularly in the US, with this being his third bout at the Great Western Forum in 1990. Rolando Pascua, known as "Jojo" on the other hand wouldn't make it on to anyone's top 10 list of all time Light Flyweights. In fact he may even struggle to make it into a Filipino top 5, never mind an all time great list. It wouldn't be a disservice to rank him outside of the top 30 for Asian fighters at the weight. Going into his bout with Gonzalez he had scored 2 straight wins, but less than 11 months removed from a loss to Napa Kiatwanchai. He had never won a bout outside of the Philippines and was 10-5 in his previous 15 bouts, after a solid 14-0 start. He had given good performances on the road but was certainly not regarded as a legitimate test for the unbeaten, and destructive, Gonzalez. What we ended up getting was one of the true shocks of 1990! A year that had more than it's share of big surprises. Gonzalez seemed to come in confidently, and was landing some solid shots from the early moments, but to his credit Pascua did well in controlling range and used his reach and speed well. Pascua was able to frustrate Gonzalez through out the first round and even when he was tagged he still remained composed and stuck with his gameplan. The pressure from Gonzalez ramped up in round 2 but Pascua continued to do well and continued to dictate the range whilst chipping away at Gonzalez. The little Mexican was left cut in round 4, when he tried to up the top and go to war with Pascua. Although the shots from Gonzalez were the better ones, he was busted up by an accidental head clash. The cut was a major problem for a man who had already been struggling with the reach and range, and was now struggling with a nasty cut. Everything was simply getting tougher and tougher for the defending champion, despite the fact he was starting to land with growing frequency. In round 6 we again saw the two men unloading shots, wildly trading in some thrilling sequences. The back and forth action was the beginning of the end, and the start of one of the year's biggest upsets! Last week we looked at the PABA Heavyweight title, as part of this series, and we took the piss a little bit by poking fun at how rarely it's been held by Asian fighters and how it has seemingly been fought for all over the globe. In the interest of fairness we only felt it apt to look at the OPBF Heavyweight title, and see how that compared with the PABA belt as give you "Did you know.... the OPBF Heavyweight title".
-The first ever OPBF Heavyweight champion was Tongan Maile Haumona, who won the title in November 1982. Going into that title bout Haumona had a reported record of 11-12-1 (9). Haumona would only win bout after his title win and retire 13-18-1 (11) -Haumona won the title by stopping a Samoan fighter with an amazing name, Prince Larry Tattoo. Tattoo bizarrely never saw the final round of any bout he was in, going 3-4-1 (3), with his draw coming from a technical draw! -The second champion, Steve Aczel, was born in Hungary whilst the third champion and fourth champions Dave Russell and Dean Waters, were both from the UK. -None of the first 7 champions managed to score a successful defense. -The first champion to record a successful defense was Jimmy Thunder. Rather interestingly his defense was in Fiji, and only the second outside of Australia. -Toakipa Tasefa beat Justin Fortune for the vacant title in Japan, in what was the bout's first contest in Asia, rather than the Pacific region. Interestingly Fortune lost the PABA title due to this loss, though the belt wasn't on the line -Colin Wilson was the first 2-time champion -There has only been one draw in a title bout, that was the 1995 bout between James Grima and Bob Mirovic -At the time off writing the title has been featured in 41 bouts, of which 18 have taken place in Australia and 18 have taken place in Japan. The other countries to host title bouts are New Zealand (4) and Fiji (1). -With 9 title bouts Koarakuan Hall holds the record for the most title bouts held. -The most defenses of the title is 9, by Okello Peter, who held the title from March 2001 to September 2006. This gives the big Japanese based Ugandan the most defenses and the longest reign, in terms of time.  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 2-time Japanese world champion Yoshiaki Numata to current world champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev. 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-Japanese fighter Yoshiaki Numata was a 2-time Super Featherweight champion back in the late 1960's and early 1970's. His first title reign began in June 1967 when he claimed the WBA and WBC Super Featherweight titles when he beat Filipino legend Flash Elorde. That bout was the second between the two men and took place at the Kokugikan. 2-Numata isn't the only fighter to have won a Super Featherweight world title at the Kokugikan, another is Takashi Miura, who won the WBC title there in April 2013, when he stopped Gamaliel Diaz in 9 rounds, dropping Diaz numerous times en route to that stoppage.  3-Way back in July 2003 Takashi Miura made his professional debut, winning a 6 round decision over Yutaka Sato. That win came on a show that also saw wins for Jorge Linares, Masayoshi Sagawa, Takehiro Shimokawara and Noel Arambulet. In fact it was Arambulet, from Venezuela, who took home a win in the main event, defeating Yutaka Niida for the WBA Minimumweight title.
4-During his career Noel Arambulet, who fought numerous times in Japan, would only be stopped twice. The first of those stoppage losses came in November 2005, when he was beaten in 7 rounds by the then 19 year old Koki Kameda, who moved to 9-0 (8) with the win. 5-As a professional Koki Kameda would box from 2003 to 2015. His debut came on a Green Tsuda card that a trio of future Japanese world champions, including Kameda. Another of those future world champions was Katsunari Takayama whilst the other was Nobuo Nashiro. 6-Nobuo Nashiro famously won his first world title in his 8th bout, stopping Martin Castillo to become the WBA Super Flyweight champion. Another fighter who won his first world title, or rather titles, in bout #8 was Murodjon Akhmadaliev, who achieved the feat earlier this year with a win over Daniel Roman! |
Thinking Out East
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