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 WBC Flyweight champion Medgoen Singsurat to former 2-time WBC Bantamweight champion Joichiro Tatsuyoshi.
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-Thailand's Medgoen Singsurat is best known for his WBC Flyweight title win, which came against Manny Pacquiao in 1999. Sadly Singsurat's reign was a short one, and lasted just 8 months, before he lost the belt in his second defense, against Filipino fighter Malcolm Tunacao. 2-The often over-looked and forgotten Malcolm Tunacao has a lengthy career that ran from 1998 to 2014, and his world title win came less than 22 months after his professional debut. Sadly his reign was also a super short one, and he also lost in his second defense, being stopped inside a round by Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, who would go on to have a legendary career after his win over Tunacao. 3-The talented Pongsaklek Wonjongkam managed to really make the division his in the early part of the 2000's, making 21 defense of the title over his 2 reigns with the belt. Rather interestingly there haven't been that many 2-time WBC Flyweight champions, in fact Wonjongkam was only the 5th man to recapture the title, and the first in over 20 years. The previous man to achieve that feat was fellow Thai Sot Chitalada. 4-The talented Sot Chitalada was one of the more well travelled Thai's from the 1980's and 1990's. In fact from his 31 professional bouts 7 were away from home, and they took place in countries as far afield as Jamaica, Kuwait and the United Kingdom. His final fight on the road was his amazing 1990 bout with Jung Koo Chang in Seoul. on the same day at a different venue in Seoul, Yong Soo Choi suffered his first professional loss. 5-During much of the 1990's Korean fighter Yong Soo Choi was a must watch action fighter, with a string of thrilling battles, including a trilogy with Yamato Mitani, 2 thrilling wars with Takanori Hatakeyama, and a brutal clash with Lakva Sim. His final world title bout came in 2003 when he lost to Sirimongkol Singwancha in Thailand. 6-Thailand's Sirimongkol Singwancha had a bizarre career that saw him fight more than 100 bouts, serve prison time, feature in a gay magazine and win world titles at both Bantamweight and Super Featherweight. One of his most famous bouts was his WBC Bantamweight title loss, which came in a sensational 7 round bout with Japanese star Joichiro Tatsuyoshi in 1997!
0 Comments
The world of professional boxing is full of interesting characters and unusual stories, with people from different backgrounds and heritages. One such fighter is former Japanese Middleweight champion Keitoku Senrima (12-8, 7), who fought between 1979 and 1989 and fought most of his career under a fake name! In fact his real name was Ge-Dok Kim. Despite being born in Japan he was a Korean fighter, who associated with North Korea due to his heritage.
Although his career only last 20 bouts he was a pretty notable figure in the ring and was one of the more notable Japanese Middleweights of the 1980's. He has also become one of the key figures in Japanese boxing in Kobe, where he has become a popular promoter. Atlhough Senrima's record looks appalling he achieved an awful lot during his 20 bouts and turned around a 4-5 start to his professional career to win the Japanese Middleweight title and make 5 successful defenses. In fact he went from 4-5 as a professional to 11-5 before a poor run late in his career. With that little introduction out of the way, lets learn more about Senrima, as we share 5 Midweek facts about Keitoku Senrima! 1-Senrima's background is interesting, as alluded to above. He was a third generation Japanese-Korean and he was one of 4 siblings, with Senrima having 2 brothers and a sister. Notably he was always quite open about his Korean heritage, something that many Japanese-Koreans tend to hide. Interestingly "Senrima" is the name of a mythical winged horse from Chinese mythology that has been regarded as an incredibly important symbol for North Korea. 2-Before taking to boxing Senrima was originally a good basketball player. He was part of the Basketball club at the Kobe Korean Senior High School and later played in an adult team following graduation. Amazingly he was 20 when he picked up boxing and would debut as a professional aged 21! Rather notable he was around 6'0" which perhaps explains some of his success in basketball, given the average height in Japan for men in 1980 was around 5'7", he was a bit of a giant. 3-A a fighter Senrima had several names. He debuted as Keitoku Senrima, then changed his fighting name in 1984, around the time of his second bout with Shinji Tojo, changed against at the time of his third bout with Tojo and then went back to the Senrima name when he challenged Gary Hubble for the OPBF Light Heavyweight. 4-In September 1983 Senrima sparred at the Kronk Gym, sharing the ring with the legendary Tommy Hearns and Milton McCrory. Rather notably Senrima would have been the Japanese Middleweight champion at this point, whilst Hearns was the WBC Light Middleweight champion and McCrory was the WBC Welterweight champion. 5-Following his retirement Senrima set up the Senrima Kobe Gym. The Gym isn't one of biggest out there but has been a success story and was responsible for the early success of Hozumi Hasegawa, who later left to be part of the Shinsei Gym. It also helped Teiru Kinoshita get two world title fights, sadly though he lost both to Zolani Tete and Jerwin Ancajas. When we talk about forgotten men of Korean boxing Hyung Chul Lee (19-6, 15) is one of the names that needs to be mentioned. The heavy handed Super Flyweight fought between 1987 and 1996 and managed to win the WBA Super Flyweight title in a career that started terrible, got turned around, and so him becoming the toast of boxing in Korea, at least for a few months.
The very likeable Korean was a heavy handed fighter, with the typical Korean grit and determination and the type of man who had no fear of travelling abroad for major fights. In fact 4 of his 25 bouts took place in Japan including his career defining victory along with a loss that helped shape his career. Fans who have seen some of Lee's bout, including his tremendous 1994 bout with Katsuya Onizuka, will know he could bring the action and be involved in some amazing contests, but other than than that not much is really remembered about him. With that in mind lets take a look at 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Hyung-Chul Lee! 1-Lee began boxing at the age of 15, and did so with the intention of making money, as he came from a poor family, and his father's business had failed. 2-As a professional fighter Lee began his career 1-3, meaning he suffered half of his career losses in his first 4 bouts. Interestingly he also suffered 2 losses in his last 2 bouts. In the rest of his career he went 18-1 (15), with his only loss during that stretch coming to the talented David Griman of Venezuela, then ranked #2 in the world by the WBA. On a similar note half of his losses came to fellow Korean's and the half also came to Venezuelans, with Griman accounting for one and Alimi Goitia accounting for the other two. 3-Despite losing to David Griman in 1990 Lee has spoke fondly about the contest, and how it helped build his confidence. At the time Griman was ranked #2 by the WBA and Lee legitimately gave him a run for his money and managed to cut Griman. Not bad for a 20 year old with a 7-3 (5) record who few gave any chance to. He explained to Boxmob in 2015 that that that loss was his most memorable bout. 4-In April 1994 Lee was scheduled to face Katsuya Onizkua, the then WBA Super Flyweight champion, but pulled out of the bout due to his father having cancer. As a result Onizuka faced Seung Koo Lee, who he beat via a controversial 12 round decision. Lee would then get a shot at Onizuka 5 months later, and upset the Japanese star, stopping him in 9 rounds in an absolute barn burner. For those wondering Lee's father had successful cancer surgery before Lee and Onizuka did face off. Also worth noting is that Seung Koo Lee and Hyung Chul Lee often sparred together. 5-Going into that aforementioned bout with Onizuka, Lee had been promised a house if he won by one of his sponsors. Sadly for Lee the sponsor failed to deliver on that promise. 6-Sadly for Lee his reign was a short lived one, making just a single defense of the title when he stopped Tomonori Tamura 5 months after winning the title. Going into that bout Lee had a pretty severe injury in his right hand and needed an anaesthetic injection before the fight. Sadly for him the anaesthesia wore off around the 7th round, leaving him fighting in agony against a badly swollen Tamura. Sadly he lost the title just 5 months later, losing in a controversial bout against Alimi Goitia, that was horribly officiated by Armand Krief. 7-Although best known for his short reign as the WBA Super Flyweight champion it wasn't the only only honour that Lee took. Prior to winning the world title he had won the Korean national title, in 1991, and the Korean Rookie of the Year crown, in 1989. 8-Following his retirement from boxing Lee has had a number of jobs. These included running a coffee shop and later as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company. 9-As of January 2015 Lee had two children, a son who was 13 and a daughter who was 11. He was also married to a nurse 10-The fighter shares his name with a Korean Actor. The acting Hyung-Chul Lee has featured in Korean TV shows, Movies and even on stage, playing the role of Henry Higgins in a stage production of "My Fair Lady". 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 rising Japanese fighter Ginjiro Shigeoka to former WBC Flyweight champion Medgoen Singsurat.
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-We saw talented Japanese youngster Ginjiro Shigeoka make his professional debut in 2018, when he stopped Sanchai Yotboon at Korakuen Hall. Just over 15 months later he scored a massive win over former world title challenger Rey Loreto, from the Philippines. 2-Despite a less than impressive looking record Filipino fighter Rey Loreto has scored numerous notable wins during his exciting career. The most famous of those was his 2014 KO win over South African fighter Nkosinathi Joyi, which took place in Monaco ad was aired in the UK on Boxnation. On the same card as that bout we saw Gennadiy Golovkin stop Adama Oasumanu in 7 rounds. 3-In 2012 the plan for hard hitting Kazakh Middleweight Gennadiy Golovkin was for him to unify the WBA title with the WBO belt held by skilled Russian fighter Dmitry Pirog, who sadly had to cancel those plans due to injury issues. 4-Due to his various injuries Dmitry Pirog retired in 2012 as the reigning WBO Middleweight champion. At that point in his career he was 20-0 (15) and, as a result, he is one of the few world champions to retire unbeaten. Another such fighter was Korean Super Bantamweight Ji Won Kim, who held the IBF Super Bantamweight title in 1985 and 1986. 5-As already mentioned Ji Won Kim is a former IBF Super Bantamweight champion, and during his reign he made 4 defense of the that title before vacating it. Another former IBF Super Bantamweight champion who recorded 4 defenses before vacating the belt is Filipino great Manny Pacquiao, who held the title from 2001 to 2003. 6-Prior to winning the IBF Super Bantamweight title Manny Pacquiao has previously held several other belts, the most notable of which was the WBC Flyweight title. That title was lost on the scales, when he failed to make the 112lbs limit for what would have been his second defense. Despite failing to make weight he went into the scheduled fight and ended up getting stopped, in 3 rounds, by the then unbeaten Medgoen Singsurat. Last week in this series we covered Hironari Oshima, the popular Japanese Lightweight, though one thing we didn't mention was that he also had a boxing brother, Noritsugu Oshima (9-4, 8) who was also a really interesting fighter. Noritsugu lacked the success of his older brother but was also a very interesting fighter fighter to look back on.
Noritsugu, like his brother, had similar issues in his life and to become a professional but that is part of what makes his story as interesting as it is, and part of why want to shine a light on him this week. With that in mind let us bring you 5 Midweek Facts about Noritsugu Oshima 1-It's been reported that Noritsugu didn't have much of a connection with his parents, and instead looked up to Hironori as a father figure. That was despite the fact the two were pretty much the same age. That was likely why Noritsugu also ended up involved in gangs and crime, like his older brother 2-Like his older brother Noritsugu was also known as a "tattoo boxer", it was due to the tattoos he had that struggled to get a Japanese boxing license. It was reported that around 70% of his upper body was covered in tattoos, with his chest, back, shoulders and wrists covered in them. He had been in negotiations with the JPBA to get a license as a Japanese boxer, but began his career outside of Japan. 3-Interestingly Boxrec fails to include Oshima's first 3 professional bouts. They all took place in Thailand and he went 3-0 (3) in those bouts. The first of those took place on September 19th 2006, the day of the 2006 Thai coup d'état, where the Thai military ousted then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He reported that the "city was noisy and tanks were running in the city". 4-Prior to making his Japanese professional boxing debut Oshima twice battled against the then retired Koji Arisawa in an exhibition bout as part of a "Deep Glove" event, competing on "DEEP GLOVE 1" and "DEEP GLOVE 2". Both of these events were promoted by MMA organisation DEEP. 5-Oshima finally made his Japanese debut at the age of 32 beating Takahiro Ozawa. For the bout he had laser surgery to remove some of the tattoos and also had foundation on to cover some of what was left. Sadly given his advanced age his career was never going to be a long one and he went 6-4 (5) in Japan before his career came to an end in 2011. Before his career was over there was various TV documentary and shows covering his fight to turn professional. Following his retirement from boxing there are reports that he became a care worker. Between 1996 and 2016 we saw the career of Sutep Wangmuk, better known as Denkaosan Kaovichit (63-7-1, 26), unfold with some really notable success. The Thai was never a huge star of boxing, but he was a former WBA Flyweight champion and he scored a number of notable wins, including victories of Takefumio Sakata, Daiki Kameda and Nobuo Nashiro.
To begin his career Denkaosan got off to a great start winning his first 20 bouts, and was 48-1-1 at one point, but the later part of his career really wasn't great and he seemed to become a "name" for emerging fighters to get on their records in the later portion of his career. Despite ending his career in under-whelming fashion Denkaosan is certainly an interesting fighter, and someone worthy of a bit more attention than he gets. With that in mind let us shine a light on him as we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Denkaosan Kaovichit 1-Denkaosan began fighting at the age of 12, where he took the Kaovichit name. Sadly however details regarding an amateur career are scarce, as are details regarding a Muay Thai career, though he did reportedly compete in Muay Thai before switching to "international boxing" a few years later. 2-Unlike many professional boxers Denkaosan debuted in a 12 rounder, in fact he actually won the PABA Flyweight title, via 12 round decision, on his debut. A genuinely impressive accomplishment, and one that is even more impressive when you realise that win came against the then GAB champion Melvin Magramo, from the Philippines. In fact the win aged really well as Magramo later went on to win the OPBF title. Amazingly he would compete in 51 total bouts for some form of PABA title, and 10 bouts for other titles, giving him 61 career title boutsin just 71 professional bouts! 3-Denkaosan, like many fighters, is religious and is actually a Muslim, which is somewhat rare in Thailand where Buddhism is the dominant religion, by a long way. 4-As with so many Thai fighters Denakosan fought with a number of sponsor names during his career. He is best known as "Kaovichit" but also fought as Denkaosan Singwancha and Denkaosan Kratingdaenggym. The WBA seemed to ignore the various name changes however, and consistently kept him as "Kaovichit". He also used a unique name, for one bout only, in 1997 against Todd Makelim. Sadly we've not been able to translate this one properly from the Thai, which is "ส.ท่าอิฐ". 5-Unlike many of the top Thai's Denkaosan did actually travel for a lot of his man fights. In fact he fought 10 of his 71 bouts on the road, and fought in 5 different countries. They were Thailand, Japan, USA, Panama and Australia. Among his bouts on the road he faced Eric Morel, Takefumi Sakata - twice, Daiki Kameda - twice, Luis Concepcion, Kohei Kono and TJ Doheny. For those curious, his record outside of Thailand was 2-7-1 whilst at home he went a perfect 61-0. 6-Despite having 71 fights, over a career that lasted around 20 years, Denkaosan only fought 3 times in August and December. For comparison his most common months for fighting were October and February, with 9 bouts in each of those months. 7-Denkaosan has, at least, 7 children! 8-Denkaosan officially announced his retirement in April 2016 after losing in Japan to Kazuki Tanaka. That was a third straight stoppage loss for the Thai, who was 1-4 in his previous 5, having been stopped in all 4 losses, and he had only scored 3 wins in the previous 3 years, with the only win of note being his split decision over Nobuo Nashiro. 9-Sadly, later in 2016, Denkaosan was hospitalised following an attack in Thailand that saw him almost have his left hand amputated. Details of the attack were unclear, though there was said to have been a dispute about a dog and a sharp instrument used against Denkaosan, reported to have been either a sword or a knife. 10-Denkaosan is one of a number of sports people born in August 23rd 1976. Others include 2-time World Championship bronze medal winning Judoka Edinanci Silva, from Brazil, former Chinese football player Han Wenxia, Olympic gold medal winner LaTasha Colander, who won the 4 x 400m relay with team US in 2000, and NBAgiant Pat Garrity, who was around 18" taller than Denkaosan! Sadly 2020 was not a year to remember. It saw a pandemic being the major story of the year, fires in the US and Australia and swathes of Locusts. Sadly for those looking to sport to escape the world we were living in there was a massive hiatus in pretty much every sport, including boxing. One of the final Asian shows before that hiatus had an often forgotten upset taking place in Thailand, as TL Promotions saw one of their biggest hopefuls getting destroyed by an unheralded Filipino puncher. For today's What a Shock we are going to look at that upset, and try to draw attention to an upset that few noticed at the time, but is well worthy of a watch back. Sarawut Thawornkham (21-2, 16) vs Jeny Boy Boca (13-6, 11) Thailand's Sarawut Thawornkham, who has fought as both Dennapa Kiatniwat and Dennapa Trabaihor among other names, was once regarded as a very promising Thai hopeful. He lost on his debut, in 2014 to Masato Morisaki in Japan, but bounced back from that loss with 20 straight wins. Those wins lead him to getting a WBA world title fight in 2019, against Artem Dalakian. Although he came up short against the tricky Ukrainian, he did manage to last in to round 10 with Dalakian. Following that loss to Dalakian we had seen the Thai fight once, claiming a minor regional title at Super Flyweight before dropping to Flyweight in early 2020. The hope was for him to re-establish himself as a Flyweight contender and work with TL Boxing Promotions to help him get back to world level. In the opposite corner to the former world title challenger was Filipino fighter Jeny Boy Buca, a 25 year old who was sporting a 13-6 (11) record. Whilst that's not an awful record he had gone 1-3 in his previous 4 bouts, and had been beaten by some fairly average domestic level fighters, including Adrian Lerasan and Lony Cadayday. Not only had Boca struggled in his previous 4 bouts but he was 5-5 in his last 10 and had been stopped 3 times heading into this bout. Whilst Boca's form was poor he had also lost in his only previous bout outside of the Philippines and had only beaten 4 opponents with more wins than losses, and all 4 of those had 6 or fewer wins. He had nothing at all on his record to suggest he stood a chance with the Thai. He was there to pad up the local man's record. It was clear what this bout was about. Get the local man a win, help him rebuild some momentum and begin his pursuit of a second world title bout. Sadly for TL Promotions no one told Boca that he was supposed to lose. Instead of turning up to play his role as the loser Boca started well, taking the fight to the local man, coming forward and trying to get Dennapa's respect almost immediately. The Thai looked like he was taking pressure well for the first minute but then Boca began to put his foot on the gas and was landing pretty frequently to the head and body of the local man. By the end of the round Dennapa began to try and fight fire with fire, giving us a thrilling end to the round. With Dennapa seemingly building his confidence at the end of round 1 Boca didn't take look to put the Thai back in his place in round 2 as he again took the fight to the local and landed heavy leather. A gallant fight back from Dennapa gave us some exciting action but the Thai was still eating some wild left hands. The power of Boca finally played it's role in round 3, when he dropped Dennapa in the early seconds, with a huge, sweeping right hand. This was as close to a round house punch as we could see, and it landed clean, putting the Thai down. Following the knockdown Boca went all out, looking for the finish. To his credit Dennapa tried to battle back of the ropes but couldn't avoid the shots of Boca, who put a huge effort in. Some how Dennapa survived the storm, as Boca seemed to punch himself out. By the end of round 3 it seemed like the bout might be turning against the Filipino who was looking like was running out of gas. Unfortunately for local fans Boca still had something in the tank, and in round 4 he began to pick shots more carefully whilst Dennapa put his foot on the gas. The big effort from Dennapa made it seem like he had a chance to turn things around but then Boca turned the table and dropped Dennapa for a second time. Dennapa got back to his feet but he was about spent himself and Boca began unloading huge head shots forcing the referee to jump in. Whilst not a massive shock that will go down in the history books as something big, this was certainly a big surprise and a major set back for Dennapa, who's hopes of getting a second world title fight in the near future were dashed, big time. Sadly however Boca struggled to build on the result, with boxing being shut down for months afterwards, preventing him from building any momentum on the back of this career best win. |
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
|