One man who is certainly an interesting fighter, despite never winning a world title, is Teiru Kinoshita (26-3-1, 9) who twice fought for a world title, but twice came up short. The talented southpaw was a former Japanese national champion who fought between 2008 and 2018, and although never a star he did have a genuinely solid career.
We suspect many will remember Kinoshita for his second world title bout, where he decimated by IBF Super Flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas in 7 rounds on the under-card of Manny Pacquiao's bout with Jeff Horn. Other than that we doubt fans will know much about Kinoshita, who really was hidden away on the Japanese scene for almost his entire career. Surprisingly for some, that bout with Ancajas was his second shot at the world title, but more about his first a little later as we give Kinoshita our 5 Midweek Facts treatment. 1-As an amateur Kinoshita went a very impressive 65-15, and competed whilst at Ryukoku University. 2-Kinoshita's 5 defenses of the Japanese Super Flyweight title sees him tied 2nd for the most defenses in a single reign, with Sho Ishida. The record is held by Shunichi Nakajima who scored 6 defenses in his single reign. In terms of total defenses Kinoshita is also beaten by Jackal Maruyama, who notched 6 defenses in total, but did so over his two reigns. 3-Rather interestingly Kinoshita is a right handed southpaw, like former Japanese world champion Hiroshi Kawashima, also a Super Flyweight like Kinoshita. 4-In 2014 Kinoshita got his first world title fight, facing off with Zolani Tete for the IBF Super Flyweight title. The bout took place at the Kobe Portopia Hotel, giving Kinoshita a really clear advantage as that was where he worked his day job. The hotel did give him time off to prepare for the fight, though sadly he lost the bout and lost his unbeaten record in the process. This bout was also aired on Sky A+, and not a terrestrial channel. In fact it was one of the last big bouts on Sky A+ in Japan before the channel stopped running boxing. 5-Kinoshita is a Japanese-Korean, born Tae Il Park. Multiple sources actually state that despite being born in Osaka and living in Kobe he's actually a Korean national. It's also worth noting that he got into boxing due to another Japanese-Korean, Masamori Tokuyama. Like Kinoshita, Tokuyama was also a Super Flyweight.
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Having recently covered Lakva Sim in this series it seemed like an obvious next choice to cover Takanori Hatakeyama, the man that Sim beat to claim his first world title. Although not one of the legendary names among non-Japanese fans Hatakeyama was a legitimate fan favourite in his homeland, a 2-weight champion, an exciting fighter and someone who was seen as a must watching warrior.
Whilst we understand he wasn't a massive name, he's certainly a very interesting fighter, so with that in mind let us bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Takanori Hatakeyama 1-Hatakeyama dropped out of high school to pursue his boxing career, though did re-enrol after his retirement from the ring and graduated. 2-Like many Japanese fighters from the 1990's and 00's Hatakeyama was inspired to become a boxer after watching Joichiro Tatsuyoshi on TV. Before wanting to become a boxer he had wanted to become a baseball player. 3-Hatakeyama often used walk out music from Japanese rock star Kyosuke Himuro, including "STAY", "Re-born" and "NATIVE STRANGER" 4-In 1998 Hatakeyama had his first, and only, Japanese title fight as he took on the then 18-0 Koji Arisawa. At the time this was regarded as the biggest Japanese title fight, due to the popularity of both men. Despite only being a Japanese title fight it headlined at the Kokugikan and was televised live on Fuji TV. This was an absolute barn burner and live up the hype that Japanese media had given it. Strangely however it had come after Hatakeyama had won the OPBF title and fought at world level, essentially dropping down to Japanese title level after mixing against the divisional elite. 5-Interestingly Hatakeyama took part in Kazu Arisawa's retirement ceremony, sparring with Arisawa. Kazu is actually the twin of Koji Arisawa, the man Hatakeyama beat in that Japanese title fight. Rather notably Kazu had fought, and lost, on the under-card of the 1998 bout between his twin and Hatakeyama. 6-In June 1999 Hatakeyama lost the WBA Super Featherweight title to Lakva Sim, a loss that saw Sim crowned as the first Mongolian world champion in history. Following that bout Hatakeyama actually announced his retirement, announcing he was hanging them up in July. The following year however he returned as an active fighter, deciding to return in January 2000. He would later go on to win the WBA Lightweight title in his return fight, in June 2000 almost a year to the day that he lost to Sim. 7-Hatakeyama is married to Kumiko Kiyohara, who works on Japanese TV as a "free announce", meaning she's unaffiliated to any particular TV channel. Reportedly the two got married in 2006. This is actually his second marriage, and he has a child with his ex-wife. 8-During his career Hatakeyama was a 2-time Japanese fighter of the year (1998, 2000) and was twice a winner in the Japanese Match of the Year (also 1998 and 2000) 9-Hatakeyama currently runs a boxing gym with former WBA Middleweight champion, and close friend, Shinji Takehara. The gym the two run together has helped guide Naoko Fujioka's rise to being the first 5 weight world champion from Japan! 10-Since hanging up the gloves Hatakeyama has been busy. Not only does he run a gym, as mentioned above, but he's also worked as a commentator and an actor, among other things. Notably he has featured in several movies, including the main role in the 2003 movie "Round 1", where he plays "Toppo" Upsets arre a weird thing to talk about. Sometimes people call them, sometimes they don't. For us a key indicator as to whether a bout is an upset or not is the betting odds before a fight takes place. With that in mind, we bring you one of the biggest betting upsets since we starting this site, in our latest "What a Shock" article. And it's one that genuinely did result in our jaws dropping at the time. It ended one manes career and boosted another fighter, who went on to have a true FOTY contender only a few fights later. Date July 28th 2017 Venue Shanghai Oriental Sports Center, Shanghai, China Fighters Zou Shiming (9-1, 2) vs Sho Kimura (14-1-2, 7) In the summer of 2017 we saw Zou Shiming, the then WBO Flyweight champion, essentially taking control of his own career and frustrating Bob Arum and Top Rank. This resulted in Shiming setting up a title defense of his own in Shanghai against little known Japanese challenger Sho Kimura. Shiming took responsibility for the show, with his wife Ran Ying Yin, and he was looking to make his first defense of the WBO Flyweight title. Shiming had won the WBO title the previous November but had had to wait more than 8 months to defend it. When he did return to the ring he selected the then unknown Sho Kimura as his opponent. Prior to turning professional Shiming was an amateur standout and was tipped for success as a professional. He never really adapted to the pros in the way Top Rank had hoped, but he was still a capable boxer, with good speed, movement and boxing IQ. He had struggled but was expected to make an easy defense here. In the ring Shiming was a quick, sharp fighter, who lacked power but used his tools and amateur experience well. He had been a professional for a few years but was still a fighter with a very amateur style. It was effective, but not very fan friendly or interesting. As for Kimura he really was unknown. Of course now we all know who Kimura is, but back in 2017 his only win of note had been a narrow decision win over Masahiro Sakamoto for the WBO Asia Pacific title. He had no other wins of any note other than that one. In fact going deeper on his record he had lost inside a round on his debut. Not only had he done little in his boxing career, but he was also working as a delivery man outside of the ring, and was an unknown, even in Japan. Stylistically Kimura was an aggressive pressure fighter, but a rather basic one, relying more on his strength and stamina than technical ability. He had proven he could go 12 rounds, when he beat Sakamoto, but didn't look like a special boxer during that fight. It's worth noting that not only did Kimura have only a single win of note, Shiming was promoting the event but also no Japanese fighter had ever won a world title on Chinese soil before. It seemed an easy first defense for the champion and the bookies though as much, making Shiming a favourite, with odds between 1/12 and 1/40 whilst Kimura was a 9/1 under-dog. From the off this was a pretty fun fight. Kimura immediately brought the pressure and Shiming was forced to let his hands go to try and create space. Although the two styles was massively different it made for a great dynamic between boxer and pressure fighter. As the rounds went on Shiming was starting to out work Kimura, but never managed to demoralise the challenger, who was getting out landed, but landing the better shots, and never looked like he was tiring. This allowed Shiming to establish an early lead but he had been forced to work hard every round. As we entered the later rounds the pressure from Kimura kept coming, and the wheels were beginning to come undone on Shiming. He was was slowing drastically, his hands were coming down and Kimura was getting the last word in on the exchanges. Kimura was cut, but determined, whilst Shiming was fighting on fumes, and looking under real pressure. The pressure just didn't stop and the early lead of Shiming's was seemingly worn away as we entered round 10, however with the bout being in China however it was always going to be hard to trust the scoring. In round 11 Kimura took the the bout of the judges hands as he continued to pressure and eventually forced an exhausted Shiming to the canvas. Shiming beat the count but was done and the referee waved off the bout. The loss essentially ended Shiming's career, with the Chinese fighter suffering eye issues that forced him to get emergency medical attention and he came close to losing sight in one eye. As for Kimura the bout launched his career massively, and he would go on to defend the belt twice before losing in the 2018 FOTY contender against Kosei Tanaka. Although it's easy to down play what a shock this was, we need to remember Kimura was 9/1 to win! This was a serious upset and a massive shock, even if now, knowing what we do about Kimura, we would all back the Japanese fighter to beat Shiming. Earlier this week Ohashi Gym held a show behind closed doors that saw OPBF Featherweight champion Satoshi Shimizu (9-1, 9) take card of business and stop the game but over-matched Kyohei Tonomoto. The win saw Shimizu record his 5th defense of the OPBF title and his first win since December 2018. Whilst we all know what has happened with world in recent months it also needs to be noted that Shimizu suffered quite a serious injury last year, in his loss to Joe Noynay.
With the win under-his-belt and the OPBF title still around his waist we though it would be a great time to look at 5 potential bouts for Shimizu as we return with another in the "Five For" series. This is the series where we take a recent winner and look at 5 match ups that we'd like to see them being involved in. At the moment the boxing world is a bit of a mess, given what's going on but given how things are evolving there's a good chance that a lot of international travel will begin to free up in the next few months, before we'd expect Shimizu to be fighting again. With that in mind we're not going to stick to just Japanese fighters for his next bout, which isn't likely until late October at the earliest. 1-Musashi Mori (11-0, 6) The most obvious of the bouts that we'd like to see Shimizu in is a regional title unification bout between himself and talented youngster Musashi Mori, the current WBO Asia Pacfic champion. The bout has been spoken about by both teams already, and is one that not only the fights want but also their teams. Hideyuki Ohashi, who promotes Shimizu, and Yasuei Yakushiji, who is the man behind Mori, appear to want to set this up. The winner of this would almost certainly be on the verge of a world title fight, and would feel like they have proven themselves as the best in Japan. This is the obvious choice, and the one we like, a lot. 2-Reiya Abe (19-3-1, 9) Whilst Mori would be the ideal choice for Shimizu if he was to take on a Japanese opponent, there are a number of others. We're going to look at two of those, Ryo Sagawa and Hinata Maruta, as they are expected to face off the Japanese national title later in the year but a bout with Reiya Abe would be a very interesting one and one that would see both men needing to answer question. Shimizu would see himself in the ring with a very smart, patient and technical fighter, who would make him pay for missing, and look to create space behind his southpaw jab. As for Abe the bout would see him in with a serious puncher, and force him to answer questions about his chin. We don't expect this one to be made, but we can't help but think this would be a brilliant match up! 3-Mark Magsayo (20-0, 14) Whilst Mori is the obvious choice for Shimizu to move towards a world title fight there would be an interesting option in unbeaten Filipino Mark Magsayo. Although Magsayo doesn't have a regional belt he is very highly regarded boxer who is ranked in the top 15 by all 4 title bodies, which would open up a lot of options for Shimizu down the line. Given Shimizu's age it may be worth keeping the doors open, rather than targetting a particular belt, and this would open up those doors. At least it would if he could beat Magsayo, and that is certainly not a given, with the Filipino having aspirations of his own. To us this is a very interesting bout and one that could tell us a lot about both men. 4-Sakaria Lukas (23-0, 16) If Ohashi can't secure one of the names above it may make sense for them to look at a fighter with an unbeaten record and a very high ranking with one of the title bodies. With that in mind unbeaten Namibian fighter Sakaria Lukas could be a perfect choice. He lacks name value but would likely be a cheap opponent to get over to Japan, where he would be risking his #5 IBF ranking. We're not sure how Lukas has gotten such a high ranking but the option to face a high ranked 36 year old who doesn't appear to have a notable win would surely be an option that Shimizu would consider, given it would almost certainly have him in the mix for a future world title eliminator. Of course Lukas could prove a banana skin, but at 36 what does he have in the tank? 5-Anselmo Moreno (38-6-1, 12) Rather oddly Panama's once sensational Bantamweight Anselmo Moreno is currently a world ranked Featherweight, with the WBA ranking him. If you're part of Shimizu's team the potential to get this bout sorted has to be considered. Moreno is well known in Japan for his two tremendous bouts with Shinsuke Yamanaka, he's a big name, even now at the age of 35, but he isn't a natural Featherweight, he's lost a good couple of steps from being the fighter he once was and he's got a world ranking. In terms of scoring a big win this would be a shrewd and cynical match up, but something that would help get Shimizu some buzz internationally. We see this as very much an outside choice, even more so than a bout with Lukas, but it's not something we're willing to completely rule out. Tomorrow we'll see an OPBF Featherweight title fight, as Satoshi Shimizu defends the title against Kyohei Tonomoto. With that in mind we felt this was the perfect time to feature the title in our latest "Did you know..." article.
-The first champion was Filipino fighter Larry Bataan, who beat Akiyoshi Akanuma to claim the title in 1952. He defended the belt twice, beating Akanuma in a rematch to retain the title and then beating the legendary Flash Elorde in his second defense. -Larry Bataan's reign was ended by Shigeji Kaneko, who stopped Bataan in 4 rounds. Interestingly Kaneko's reign, like that of Bataan, saw the new champion make his first defense against the man he beat for the belt, stopping Bataan in 5 rounds in their rematch. -Shigeji Kaneko's reign saw him make 6 defenses of the belt. These included one against Flash Elorde in 1954, who he also beat in a none title fight in 1955. Kaneko was also the first champion to vacate the belt and the first to defend the belt on foreign soil, something he did against Emil Bill Tinde. -The fourth champion was the wonderfully named Army Wonder Boy. Sadly his reign was a short one and saw him lose the belt in his first defense. -Thailand's Veeranid Charoenmuang was the fifth champion. He was the first Thai to hold the belt, and the only Thai to hold the title. -The record for most successful defenses in a single reign is 12, a record set by Mitsunori Seku between 1962 and 1969. His reign was the 6th -The first reign by a Korean fight was the 8th reign, which was by Hubert Kang. Kang held the title from September 1968 to March 1970. Kang was also the first man to defend the belt in Korea, doing so against Rey Miller in 1969. -In 1972 Hyun Kim, the 10th man to hold the title, featured in the first draw, defending the belt with a draw against Ernie Cruz. This was also the first, and so far only, bout for the belt to be held in Guam. -Just 2 months before Kim's draw with Cruz he became the first fighter to defend the belt with a KO1, stopping Tad Okamoto in their second bout. Strangely their first bout had gone the 12 round distance. -Royal Kobayashi was the first former world champion to win the title, doing so 17 months after losing the WBC Super Bantamweight title to Dong Kyun Yum. -Royal Kobayashi also hold the distinction as being the first man to lost the belt in the first round, losing the title in 1981 to Jung Han Hwang whilst looking to record his 8th defense. -After Hwang's win over Kobayashi the following 20 bouts for the title all took place in South Korea! Those 20 bouts, or 21 if we include Hwang's win, covered the entire of 1982-1988 -According to boxrec Filipino Davino Inocian had a record of 9-10 before winning the title in 1983, to move to 10-10. His career tally was 13-13 after his final recorded bout. -The first time the bout was fought for in Indonesia came in 1991, when Cris Saguid beat Robby Rahangmetang for the belt. -Chris Saguid was also the first man to reclaim the title, and is the only man to be a 3-time champion -The only other man to reclaim the title has been Samuel Duran. -The first Australian to win the belt was Tony Wehbee -Fighters who have won the title and then gone on to win world titles are Min Keun Oh, Hwan Kil Yuh, Ki Young Chung, Young Kyun Park, Takashi Koshimoto and Ryol Li Lee -The title has never had an interim champion -We have had 156 bouts for the belt so far, with Shimizu Vs Tonomoto set to be the 157th. These have include 6 draws. -There have so far been 48 reigns shared by 45 champions -Coming into Shimizu Vs Tonomoto only 1 of the last 14 bouts has gone the distance! -Since 1952 the bout has been fougth for every year, except for 2019! For the latest in our "Reliving the Finish" series we're looking at a relatively obscure 1990 bout for the Japanese Featherweight title. Whilst the bout isn't too well known in the west it is one of the biggest upsets ever on the Japanese domestic scene, and is true proof that a fighter's record really doesn't tell how good they can be or how dangerous they can be. In fact going in the man scoring the finish had just 1 KO in 9 professional bouts, but ended with on of the most surprising KO's of the year. Toshikazu Sono (5-4, 1) vs Seiji Asakawa (16-1-1, 12) Going into the bout the Japanese Featherweight champion was Seiji Asakawa, a man who looked like he was heading on to bigger and better things. He had recorded 5 title defenses, and looked like a man with serious power, a lot of potential and a very bright future. He was returning to Kobe, where he was from, to defend the title in what was supposed to be a tune up for a potential world title fight in 1991. Toshikazu Sono on the other hand was a fighter going no where. He had lost his last bout, less than 2 months earlier, and was 1-3 in his last 4. He was getting his first title fight, but was expected to be easy for Asakawa to deal with. After 3 fairly competitive rounds, that Asakawa was winning but was being forced to work in, it seemed the champion had managed to loosen up and was going to start going through the gears and would eventually break down Sono. With more than 2 minutes gone in round 4 Asakawa found himself backed onto the ropes, and Sono threw a big looping right, then a monstrous left hook that landed hard on Asakawa's jaw. The left hand dropped the champion, hard. To his credit Asakawa got to his knees but had no idea where he was when the referee counted 10. The knockout saw the title change hands, but wasn't the birth of a new star, as Sono retired following the win, retiring with a bizarre 6-4 (2) record. Asakawa on the other hand would later fight in 2 world title bouts, but would suffer stoppage losses in both of those bouts. 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 fighters from opposite ends of the scales, going from former Light Welterweight champion Tsuyoshi Hamada to former multi-time Thai world champion Chartchai Chionoi. 1-Hard hitting Japanese slugger Tsuyoshi Hamada was a huge punching force of nature through much of the 1980's. Although not too well remembered in the west he was a real star in Japan and has continued to be involved in boxing as one of the major players at Teiken. Hamada held the WBC Light Welterweight title for just under a year, winning it in July 1986 and losing it the following July, at the Kokugikan. 2-The Kokugikan played host to an interesting card in February 2001 headlined by an amazing bout between Takanori Hatakeyama and Rick Yoshimura. Also on that February card was Mexican American Urbano Antillon, fighting in his second professional bout. 3-Although not a major name Urbano Antillon is an interesting fighter who fought between 2000 and 2013, with his most notable bouts being his losses to Miguel Acosta, Humberto Soto and Brandon Rios. 4-Despite being a limited fighter Brandon Rios was also a tough and fun fighter to watch, and his first two bouts with Mike Alvarado were fantastic wars. Their third was significantly worse. Interestingly after those first two Alvarado bouts Rios found himself in the ring with Filipino great Manny Pacquiao. 5-The legendary Manny Pacquiao has long been the face of Filipino boxing and has been a multi-weight champion and a generational talent. Pacquiao's first world title was the WBC Flyweight title, which he won back in 1998 when he stopped Chatchai Sasakul in 8 rounds. 6-Chatchai Sasakul wasn't the only Thai to lose the WBC Flyweight title in 8 rounds. Way back in 1969 Chartchai Chionoi also lost the WBC Flyweight title in 8 rounds, when he was stopped by Mexican rival Efren Torres. Thankfully for Chionoi he get the last laugh, beating Torres for the title 13 months later to reclaim the belt! When it comes to youngsters shining brightly, few countries have as many talented youngsters making a name for themselves at a young age as Japan. Sadly many of those talented youngsters fail to reach their potential, for one reason or another. Today we look at one such fighter as we again turn to our 5 Midweek Facts series and look at Hiroyuki Miyata (12-1-2, 5).
Miyata was a real talent, who debuted at the age of 17, shined incredibly brightly early on, showed real promise through his career, and looked like he was edging towards a Japanese title fight before his career to an end in 1987. He was a genuinely exciting young talent who, like so many others, saw their career end for reasons outside of their control, ending what was a very promising career well before he hit his prime. Whilst he's not a name we expect many to be familiar with, he's a perfect candidate for this series and someone we want to shine the light on! 1-On February 16th 1985 Miyata beat Yukinari Oshiro in the All-Japan Light Flyweight Rookie of the Year final. At that point in time Miyata was just 18 years old and still a high school student! Not only did he win Rookie of the Year but also took the Skill Award and was dubbed a "genius" at the time. 2-Miyata is an interesting character, who has stated a person he respects is Julius Caesar, among his favourite music is Chopin and Beethoven, and his favourite brand it Toyota. 3-Sadly Mityata was forced to retire following his June 1987 win over Katsumi Komiyama due to a detached retina. This injury ended his career when he was just 20 years old and came not long after the 3 year anniversary of his debut! 4-Following his early retirement he set up the Miyata Sports Club. The gym was established in 1987, soon after Miyata's in ring retirement. The gym would go on to manage the career of Daisuke Naito, the gym's only world champion so far. It's certainly not a huge gym, but is a fairly notable one 5-Miyata has released a 2-DVD pack on "Guiding Techniques to Strengthen Mental Training". This can be purchased in Japan for ¥3,780. The pack is based on building the mental aspects of people in sport, and wase seemingly founded on his own training. Mongolian fighter Lkhagva Dugarbaatar, better known as Lakva Sim, is someone we don't expect everyone to be familiar with but he's a very significant fighter in Asian history. He was not only the first Mongolian world champion but, as of February 9th 2020, he is still the only Mongolian world champion.
Whilst those who do know about Sim will know he's a 2-weight world champion, who won the WBA Super Featherweight and WBA Lightweight titles in 1999 and 2004 respectively, there is a lot about Sim that has gone under the radar. With that said Sim has been one of the most requested fighters to be featured in our "10 facts you probably didn't know about..." series. So here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Lakva Sim 1-Sim was one of 4 siblings. He had 2 brothers and a sister and lived with his mother, an office worker, in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. 2-Sim's amateur record was a reported 142-14 (119), and began boxing at the age of 14 3-On his professional debut Sim won the PABA Lightweight title and in his second pro bout he won the PABA Super Featherweight title, which he defended 3 times. His second defense of PABA Super Featherweight title saw him overcoming former world title challenger Noree Jockygym 4-According to the Korean press Sim got a purse of around $200,000 to defend the WBA Super Featherweight title against Jong Kwon Baek. The press also reported that Baek got $30,000 to challenge Sim. Korean papers also reported that losing this fight Sim sat in the ring in protest for around 10 minutes, in disgust at what was regarded, even by the Korean's as a controversial and "unlucky" decision. 5-Interestingly after losing to Baek, Sim held a press conference to announce that he would rematch Baek "within 90 days". For whatever reason that rematch never actually took place, despite both Sim and Baek fighting on the same card, on January 30th 2000, was pretty much 90 days from the press conference. 6-In 2001 he was promoted by Japanese gym Yokohama Sakura Boxing Gym, and fought under a different ring name, Lakva Kenshi. Interestingly he had transferred to the Yokohama Sakura gym from a Korean gym. 7-In his 26 fight career Sim was a proper road warrior. He fought just twice in Mongolia, whilst also fighting in Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Japan and the USA. 8-Despite being regarded as a big puncher Sim never scored an opening round T/KO. He had 5 in round 2; 3 in round 3; 2 in round 4; 2 in round 5; 4 in round 6; and 1 in each of round 7 and 12. 9-He is friends with Mongolian sumo wrestler Kyokushūzan Noboru, who is now a politician in Mongolia 10-According to Mongolian newspapers Sim has been arrested multiple times for gambling. With arrests in 2011, 2012 and 2015. Interestingly the 2015 arrested also saw one of the people he was gambling with being found with narcotics. The 2012 arrest saw Sim being sentenced to a year in prison by the Khan-Uul District Court Tales from the East - Yuji Gomez, from banging them in the ring to banging them in other ways!7/11/2020 We all know that boxer's have a limited life span in the sport. Whilst many may go on to become trainers, managers, commentators, or remain in the sport in some way many turn to completely different careers once their days as an in ring warrior is over. Mostly these careers will be rather typical and mundane work, like an office worker or a warehouse operative. You know, the normal jobs that anyone could do. Others, for example Guts Ishimatsu Hidekazu Akai, end up behind a camera as successful actors.
Another former boxer who turned to acting, albeit a different kind of acting, is former Japanese Featherweight champion Yuji Gomez who has bared all, quite literally, in his post boxing career...as an adult film star. Yeah, after retiring from fucking people up in the ring Gomez turned to fucking them in other ways, and has been a genuine success in the world of the adult flicks. So lets rewind and talk a bit about Gomez, before concentrating on his post boxing roles. Gomez, born Eugenio Gomez, was born in New York to a Puerto Rican Father and Dominican mother. He was originally a power lifter who turned to boxing after high school and would visit Japan in 1998. It was in Japan that he would fight his entire boxing career running up a very good 21-5 (20) professional record. His career was an exciting one, and win or lose his bouts didn't tend to go long, with 15 of his 26 bouts ending in the first round. Only 5 of his bouts went beyond 6 rounds and none went into a 9th round. During Gomez's professional boxing career, which spanned from 1999 to 2009 when he turned 37 and his license experience, he won the All Japan Rookie of the Year and the Japanese Featherweight title. In 2013 Gomez turned his hand, or rather his....man parts, to something new. Becoming an actor in some adult videos. The first of those was released in October 2013 and he followed that up with another before the year was of, showing off what was said to be a 28cm piece of kit. From what we understand, following his first two movies coming out in 2013 there was 11 more released in 2014, with each released on the first of the month except in June for some reason. Presumably the porn industry in Japan has a dry month in summer. That was followed by 11 more releases in 2015, this time with one in June but not in October, a further 8 in 2016 and one in 2017. Whilst we won't link to any of his work, for obvious reasons, those who are curious should be able to find stuff relatively easily. For a man well known for his opening round blow outs Gomez's career in porn has proven he's very comfortable at lasting more than 3 minutes when he needs to! |
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