Due to the lack of action going on in the ring right now, we've decided we need to put some extra mini articles out. As a result we've decided to do a mid-week spin off of our Sunday Series "10 facts you probably didn't know...". Rather than 10 facts however we're going to take a lesser known fighter and look at just 5 facts.
Today we'll give that treatment to former world title challenger Trash Nakanuma (27-6, 12), a man who went on to win the Japanese and OPBF Flyweight titles and had a decent, though often over-looked career. It spanned from 1993, when he was just 18 years old, to 2006 and saw him take on a number of world class fighters. 1-A rather obvious one to start with. He wasn't born "Trash", instead his birth name was Masaki Nakanuma. Like many from the Internation Boxing Gym however he took on a different surname, which was a word that had meaning in English. Other examples of this include Royal Kobayashi, Leopard Tamakuma, Jackal Maruyama and Crusher Miura. 2-Nakanuma's parents when he was just 1 year old and fell under the custody of his father. Sadly his father was certainly not a great parent, being a violent, drunk gambler. Nakanuma's father died when he was 17. This rough upbringing helped, in some ways, to get Nakanuma into boxing, and vowing to reach the top of the sport for his father and his sister, who had helped support Nakanuma's life. 3-In 1997 Nakanuma was was hospitalised with meningitis. He had a high temperature and, from reports in Japan, came incredibly close to dying. Unsurprisingly, given such a serious issue outside of the ring, Nakanuma's career was put on hold and it was almost 2 years before his next bout, in 1999. 4-Oddly half of Tamakuma's career defeats came in the space of 9 months, and in successfully more significant title bouts. He lost the Japanese Flyweight title in his second bout against Takefumi Sakata in April 2003, lost an OPBF title bout against Noriyuki Komatsu in August 2003 then lost in a WBC Flyweight title bout in January 2004. Interestingly he had previously beaten Sakata, in their first clash, and would later avenge the loss to Komatsu in 2004. 5-In a "Best I Faced" piece with Anson Wainwright for Ring TV Pongsaklek Wonjongkam stated that Nakanuma was the strongest fighter he faced during his career. Given Wonjongkam went in with a real who's who of who from the Flyweight division during his long career this is a huge compliment to how physically strong the Japanese fighter was. Even more impressive given his past, with the medical issue and situation with his father.
0 Comments
Chinese fighter Chaozhong Xiong may have been maligned by some fans but the "Little Bear" has proven to be a significant figure in the world of boxing, specifically Chinese boxing. His influence is still being felt today thanks to the growth of Max Power Promotions, which is the promotional company that he fought under, and has lead to fighters like Can Xu getting big opportunities at the world level.
Although now retired Xiong is a figure that not many fans seem to know much about, other than that he was the first Chinese world champion. With that in mind here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Chaozhong Xiong. 1-Xiong's parents are both farmers. He's was their second son, and the middle child of the family, with his parents having 3 boys. Sadly his parents were poor, and struggled with paying for the tuition fees for Xiong and his his brothers. 2-Xiong dropped out of school in 2000 to help support his family. Originally the plan was to follow his older brother in to the army, but ended up doing vocational work as a repairman for a year. That repair failed to interest him and he ended up dropping out and working more manual jobs instead. Among the jobs he did were mining and working on a banana plantation. Whilst working as a miner he would often work 10 hour days for as little as ¥10 (Chinese Yuan) a day, which was around $1.20 at the time. 3-Xiong's first world title fight didn't come at his natural Minimumweight, the division he would later make his name at, but instead Flyweight. In 2009 he challenged the then WBC, and Linear, Flyweight champion Daisuke Naito. The bout was a messy one, with both men being penalised a point for head clashes, and Naito was actually dropped in round 6, though did enough to narrowly defeat Xiong. 4-On November 27th 2011 Xiong got married in Maguan County, and had a son together in September 2016. 5-Xiong is best known for being the first male Chinese world champion, though he only got that opportunity due to the then WBC president Jose Sulaiman being involved. Sulaiman paid a a $25,000 step aside fee to Denver Cuello to allow Xiong to fight for the title ahead of Cuello. That lead to Xiong beating Javier Martinez Resendiz in November 2012. 6-Outside of China Xiong went 1-4, with his sole win on foreign soil coming against Denver Cuello in 2013, in what was Xiong's second defense of the WBC Minimumweight title. Xiong's losses on the road came in Japan, 3 times, and Monaco. 7-Xiong's third world title defense, which took place on November against Lookrak Kiatmungmee, was originally set to be against Omari Kimweri. A late change of opponent was needed when Kimweri was unable to enter China due to immigration issues. As a result the, very limited, Thai got the shot on short notice. 8-In 2013 the local government gave Xiong ¥750,000 (Chinese Yuan) as a reward for his achievements in boxing. The payment saw internet users question the decision as the local area, of Maguan County, was full of poverty. The local government defended the choice by stating it was to help inspire others to follow Xiong and become a success. 9-Xiong became the first, and so far only, Chinese fighter to win a full version of an OPBF title. He did that by beating Crison Omayao by unanimous decision over 10 rounds to claim the previous vacant title. 10-Although it never actually ended up happening, Xiong was pencilled in to fight in Las Vegas in May 2013 against Carlos Ortega from Panama. This bout was cancelled, and Zhong never actually ended up fighting in the US during his 36 fight career. As a result we had to wait until 2019, when Can Xu defended the WBA Featherweight title against Manny Robles III, to see a Chinese fighter defending a world title on US soil. Extra fact 1 -Xiong faced off with Lu Bin in 2016 at a special event put on by CCTV5 to celebrate Chinese new year. Sadly for Xiong he was easily beaten by Bin, who was too quick, too skilled and too sharp for the then former professional world champion. This bout isn't on the record of either man as it was fought with a unique rule set. Extra fact 2 -On his 35th birthday Xiong scored his last wins as a professional, beating Panya Pradabsri for the WBA International Minimumweight title. There was certainly a feeling he got a birthday present from the judges. He would only fight once more afterwards, losing to Knockout CP Freshmart almost 10 months later. Boxing has many interesting figures related to it with colourful characters popping up all over the place. We know about some of those, such as Don King, Jorge Paez and Mike Tyson. Some of those are less well known, such as Masao Suzuki, who we don't think will be on the list of people fight fans, especially those in the west, will be aware of. If you know what he did, however, you would likely be a lot more interested in him, and his empire.
Born in September 1932 Suzuki was evacuated from Tokyo, where he was born, to Yamagata, where he lived for much of his childhood whilst the second world war went on. After returning to Tokyo after the war Suzuki studied and had a number of part time jobs, including cleaning toils and pulling rickshaws. Sometime after the war Suzuki set up the Kadoebi group. The group currently has a rather wide ranging number of business. Among those businesses is a jewellery business, Kadoebi boxing and the Kadoebi line of Soaplands. Whilst suspect anyone reading this will be aware of Kadoebi boxing gym, which has a host of fantastic fighters and has brought through a number of world champions since it was set up in 1977. In recent years it has proven to be one of the major gyms in Tokyo, and they, more than any other gym, have been actively signing talented from other other gyms. The gym is a well regarded one, with some of the best trainers in Japan and some of the best fighters. Although not quite on the level of Teiken, Watanabe and Ohashi, in regards to how international fans see them, they are not far behind that trio, and their Slugfest shows are among some of the best in Japan. Whilst we assume most know about the boxing gym, we don't think too many reading this will be aware of the others businesses under the Kadoebi group. The Kadoebi jewellery shop in Toshima-Ku, Tokyo, is a pretty notable and successful business. It's not only got a shop but also a website, and the shot sells some genuinely stunning looking jewellery, including rings, necklaces and earrings. Whilst we wouldn't usually connect boxing and jewellery this is certainly not the only link between the two, and former world champion Katsushige Kawashima also now sells jewellery. What is more interesting when it comes Suzuki's empire is the 31 Soaplands, for which he is known as the "emperor of soap", and for which there is certainly some dealings which could draw comparisons between Mr Suzuki and some of the more colourful boxing figures in the west. For those unaware of Japanese culture Soapland isn't too far of what westerners would describe as a brothel. Technically they aren't, but they are certainly very close to being a brothel with clients often visiting for a certain type of release and receiving an "awa odori", or a "bubble dance". The venues, which are advertised online and don't hide what they are, but do have limitations for who can enter including limiting visitors to those being over a certain age, and reportedly can be picky on their clients, with foreigners sometimes not allowed to attend them. Although Soaplands are legal Mr Suzuki has been arrested several times, and was notably arrested in May 2009 for links to prostitution. Given the Soaplands themselves are still open however, it would seem clear that Mr Suzuki's operations are legal, and do obey the law of the land. One thing to note, if you a Western going to Japan and see "Kadoebi" on the side of the building, is just make sure you're going into the right type of Kadoebi building. In the west the sport has promoters with some interesting past, and MTK Global certainly have interesting "business" men associated with it, though they often try to hide those links. With Kadoebi the opposite is true. The Soaplands and gym both go under the "Kadoebi" name, and the main Kadeobi group website lists the gym, the Soaplands and the Jewellery shop together, as well as a recruitment page for those looking to work Kadoebi. With 3 successful business set up in totally different fields Masao Suzuki is one of the most interesting businessmen in boxing. Whilst his name might not get too much attention in the west he's someone we feel boxing fans should know more about. One of the divisions we don't really think about when it comes to Asia is the Light Heavyweight division. There have been very few fighters from Asia able to make their mark on the global scene at 175lbs, despite the fact the division is one of the "traditional 8" weight classes.
Whilst the history of the division in Asia is weak there is actually an OPBF title at Light Heavyweight, and that belt has been active since the early 1980's. It's certainly not one of the strongest linages for an OPBF title, but it's a title that deserves a little bit more light on it. With that in mind, we bring you "Did you know...The OPBF Light Heavyweight title" -The first bout for the title was in July 1982, that's almost 30 years after the first bouts for the likes of the OPBF Flyweight, Bantamweight, Featherweight, Lightweight, Welterweight and Middleweight titles. The only traditional weight to come after it was Heavyweight, which came in November 1982. -The first champion was Soo Hang Lee. On boxrec he finished with a 1-2 record, showing his only professional win, was his OPBF title win over Toshiaki Suzuki. -The second ever OPBF champion, Gary Hubble, scored a win over a fighter with the ring name "I M Gentle". -Boxrec lists Gary Hubble was also the first ever 2-time champion, having lost the title to Chong Pal Park. This bout isn't recognised by a number of other sources, and it appears this bout wasn't actually a title bout. -If we consider boxrec as being right (see above) then Chong Pal Park was the first man to hold the title and go on to win a world title. If they are wrong then the first was actually Jeff Harding. -Wang Sub Lee holds the record for the most defenses of the title, with 5. -Hisashi Teraji, the father of current world champion Kenshiro Teraji, was the first Japanese fighter to win the title. Interestingly he has the second most defenses, 4. -Jeff Harding isn't the only Aussie to win the OPBF belt before going on to win a world title. That was feat was also achieved by Paul Briggs. -There have been 18 (or 20, depending on the Chong Pal Park situation) champions, with 10 (or 12) reigns lacking a single successful defenses. -The first 3 title bouts were in Seoul -The title has only had 41 bouts for it, that's not much more than 1 a year! -The bout was inactive from January 2013, when Togasilimai Letoa vacated the title, to February 2017. It was almost 5 years between Togasilimai Letoa winning the title, in March 2012, to February 2017. 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 Korean world champion Seung Hoon Lee to Indonesian great Chris John. 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-Although not one of the more well known Korean world champion Seung Hoon Lee was a genuine talent, who had a 12 year career stretching from 1977 to 1989, and unlike many Korean fighters from the era actually managed a long career, with 52 professional bouts including 6 world title bouts. He won his world title, the IBF Super Bantamweight title, in 1987, when he beat Prayurasak Muangsurin. 2-Prayurasak Muangsurin had actually lost a previous world title bout, before losing to Lee. That was an IBF Super Flyweight world title bout Ju Do Chun. 3-Although not too well known now a days Ju Do Chun was the inaugural IBF Super Flyweight champion. He had won the title in 1987, when he beat Ken Kasugai in Japan at the Osaka Jo Hall. As the same card as Chun's title win was the debut of Shinobu Kawashima. 4-Shinobu Kawashima is the little remembered brother of the excellent Hiroshi Kawashima, who went on to win the WBC Super Flyweight title in the 1990's and ran up 6 defenses in the mid to late 1990's. 5-Hiroshi Kawashima fought out of the Yonekura Gym under the guidance of Kenji Yonekura, and originally he had a style comparable to that of fellow Yonekura gym fighter Hideyuki Ohashi. 6-In 2013 Hideyuki Ohashi managed fighter Satoshi Hosono challenged the then WBA Featherweight "Super" champion Chris John, with the two men fighting to a technical draw, in what was John's final successful defense and Hosono's final world title bout. When we talk about Japanese world champions from the 1990's one name that will always be mentioned is that of Joichiro Tatsuyoshi, who even years after his final bout is still incredibly popular in his homeland. During his career only 1 Japanese fighter beat him, and that was Yasuei Yakushiji. Sadly Yakushiji isn't as well remembered by the wider boxing fan based as the charismatic Tatsuyoshi, despite his win over "Joe of Naniwa". With that in mind we wanted to change things a little bit, and today we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Yasuei Yakushiji 1-Yakushiji went 21-6 (9) as an amateur and began boxing due to the influence of his father, himself an amateur boxer. 2-Rather surprisingly Yakushiji lost 2 of his first 4 bouts, including the All Japan Rookie of the Year final in 1987 to Mitsuo Kawashima. His early results saw many people write him off as a potential world champion and even saw him being called a coward for the style he had in those early bouts, which was a very negative style. Those losses would go on to be his only losses until his final bout in 1995, with Yakushiji retiring with a record of 24-3-1 (16) and having made 4 defenses of the WBC Bantamweight title. 3-In 1989 Yakushiji had his JBC license suspended for 6 months due to being arrested for speeding during the coming of age ceremony in January. During this ban Yakushiji travelled to Singapore, and fought against John Matienza, in what was his only bout outside of Japan. 4-In June 1990 Yakushiji's bout with Jun Yonesaka resulted in Yonesaka passing away from injuries. Following the bout Yakushiji considered retiring from the sport. In the years that followed Yakushiji would visit the grave of Yonekura, with this being shown on local TV. 5-As a professional Yakushiji's ring regular walk out music was "Let's Groove" by Earth Wind & Fire . 6-Yakushiji's career defining win against Joichiro Tatsuyoshi came on the 64th birthday of his then trainer Miyagi "Mack” Kurihara. Impressively this win drew a 39.4% audience rating in the Kanto region of Japan, a number that looks unreal compared to today's standards where even a massively viewed boxing event doesn't break 20%. We've included this legendary bout at the end of the article. 7-In 2012 Yakushiji announced that he had been scammed out of a significant amount of money from an investment fraud, reportedly costing him more than ¥130,000,000 8-In December 2012 Yakushiji divorced the woman he'd been married to for 18 years. In 2015 he later remarried a woman who was 18 years his junior 9-Following his retirement form boxing Yakushiji had starred in a number of TV shows and movies, as an actor and voice actor. He has also done commentary work for episodes of Diamond Glove. He also opened the Yakushiji gym, helping bring through a new generation of fighters. 10-Yakushiji is known as a car enthusiast and has owned a Lamborghini Diablo, among other cars. Extra Fact - Yakushiji was the only man to beat Korean Jung-Il Byun in the professional ranks, beating him twice. The Korean is of course most famous for his in ring protest at the 1988 Olympics when he refused to leave the ring after a loss to Aleksandar Hristov Earlier this year we began doing some short historical pieces about individuals from the sport. We intend to continue them later in the year, but for now we have decided to spin that idea off slightly and focus less on an individuals and more on the stories we see from the East. Today we look at an incident from Spring 1987 that featured a then 16 year old youngster and a man preparing to challenge for a world title. The story isn't too well known in the west, but was a hot topic in Japanese boxing circles around the time, and helped increase the aura around one of Japanese boxing's future stars.
Lets begin by taking you all back to early 1987. Bernardo Pinago had vacated the WBA Bantamweight title, to move up in weight, and to fill the vacancy, just weeks later Takuya Muguruma was going to face Panama's Azael Moran. Muguruma was a fighter from the Osaka Teiken gym, along with a promising young amateur fighter by the name of Joichiro Tatsuyoshi. At the time Tatsuyoshi was a promising 16 year old amateur with an 11-0 (11) record in the unpaid ranks. To help prepare for the bout with Muguruma an agreement was made for Moran to spar a Japanese amateur provided by the gym. We tend to see these types of things quite often a few days before a fight. The amateur the gym sent for Moran to spar with, as we assume you can guess, was Tatsuyoshi. The plan had been for Moran to use the session to show what he could do for the media in attendance. The two we scheduled to spar for 3 rounds, and it was assumed that Moran, who was highly ranked by the WBA, would have a rather easy time with the Japanese teenage, shake some rust and move on to the bout with Muguruma with no issues. As it turned out no one told Tatsuyoshi to take it lightly on Moran. Presumeably no one thought they had to, he was inexperienced and still a kid. They would, surely, have assumed Moran, who had close to 20 pro bouts by this point and was about to fight for a world title, wasn't wanting a teenager to hold back in a spar. What was supposed to be a 3 round spar was cancelled after just a round. Moran was left with a bloodied nose, serious embarrassment and his team were furious. They felt they had been double crossed, though it turned out their man had legitimately been embarrassed by a young, inexperienced amateur. For Moran the who situation must have been mentally crippling. If he had been beaten up to the point of cancelling a spar with a youngster from the Osaka Teiken gym, what was Muguruma going to be able to do to him in an actual fight? As it turned out Muguruma would stop Moran in the 5th round of their clash. As for Tatsuyoshi the whole incident boosted his career massively. He had a huge boost to his reputation, the story of Tatsuyoshi beating up Moran went across Japan like wild fire and he was being dubbed a future world champion. Of course we all know what Tatsuyoshi would later go on to achieve, becoming a star during the 1990's. This however showed his potential very early! *Note - There are some minor inconsistencies between different paper reports from the time, though they all agree that the two sparred, for a single round in Spring 1987, with Moran cancelling the final 2 rounds of the session due to Tatsuyoshi overwhelming him. We continue looking over a bunch of titles during this series as we look at the OPBF Middleweight title, as we bring you "Did you know...the OPBF Middleweight title".
-The inaugural title fight saw Hachiro Tatsumi defeat Tony Aldeguer. Amazingly the men had a staggering different in experience, if we take Boxrec's records as being complete. It was Tatsumi's 75th bout and Aldeguer's 5th. This bout was when the title was still known as the OBF title. -We mentioned the difference in experience between Tatsumi and Aldeguer a moment ago. If we accept boxrec's records as complete, which they admit they aren't, then Tatsumi's title bout against Sema Klasuk has an even crazier gulf in experience. It was Tatsumi's 84th bout...and Klasuk's debut! On a similar note Tatsumi, who was then 63-21-5 (19) lost the title in 1957 to the then 1-0 (1) Daothong Singhpallop...who had fought just 3 recorded rounds before beating Tatsumi. -Hachiro Tatsumi is not only the first OPBF Middleweight champion but is also one of two 3-time champion. Sadly though his 3 combined reigns only saw him making 2 successful defenses. He also managed to unify the OPBF and Japanese titles in the 1950's! -The only other 3-time champion, for those who are curios, is Fumio Kaizu who managed 6 defenses in total, including one over Tatsumi. -When Somdej Yontarakit defeated Hachiro Tatsumi in 1955 he became the first 2-weight OPBF champion, holding the OPBF Welterweight and Middleweight titles. -Jae Doo Yuh holds the record for most defenses, at 21. Interestignly Boxrec has credited him with an extra defense. It appears his second but with Nobuyoshi Ozaki, in March 1975, wasn't actually an OPBF title fight defense. -Yuh is one of just two men with more than 10 defenses, the other is Chong Pal Pak, with 15 defenses of the title. -Indonesian Suwarno had a reported 1-6 record when he won the title...in his fourth attempt at the belt. -An impressive 6 OPBF Middleweight champions have won world titles! These are Ki Soo Kim, who won the lineal Light Middleweight title, Jae Doo Yuh, who won the WBA Light Middleweight title, Chong Pal Park, who won the IBF and WBA Super Middleweight titles, In Chul Baek, who also won the WBA Super Middleweight title, Shinji Takehara, who won the WBA Middleweight title, Sam Soliman, who won the IBF Middleweight title, Sakio Bika, who won the WBC Super Middleweight title. -In March 1988 two former OPBF Middleweight champions clashed in a WBA Super Middleweight title bout! That was won by Chong Pal Park, who stopped Polly Pasireron in 5 rounds. -Daothong Singhpallop was stripped of the title in May 1959, then won the title back in July that year to become a 2-time champion. |
Thinking Out East
With this site being pretty successful so far we've decided to open up about our own views and start what could be considered effectively an editorial style opinion column dubbed "Thinking Out East" (T.O.E). Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|