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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 Marvin Sonsona to Den Junlaphan.
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-Talented Filipino fighter Marvin Sonsona is one of boxing's greatest "what ifs?", with the big question being "what if he had commitment to the sport and some real discipline?" Despite that he was also one of the sports most talented prodigies, winning the WBO Super Flyweight title aged just 19. Later in his career he proved he was still a talented fighter, and his KO win over Akifumi Shimoda in 2014 showed touches of genius. Sonsona debuted in 2007, and did so with a win over fellow debutant Richard Donaire. 2-Unsurprisingly, given his surname, Richard Donaire was part of the Donaire boxing family. His uncle is Nonito Donaire Sr, and his cousins are Glenn Donaire and the legendary Nonito Donaire. 3-During long and successful career Nonito Donaire has gone through a lot of trainers. These have included his father, former Filipino fighters Dodie Boy and Jonathan Penalosa, the fantastic Robert Garcia and the legendary Ismael Salas. 4-Dring his long and hugely successful career as a trainer Ismael Salas really has trained a who's who, of who and has had success as a trained in both professional boxing, working with the likes of Donaire, Kazuto Ioka, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Danny Grean and Guillermo Rigondeaux, but also the Thai National Amateur team in the early 2000's. Among the amateurs he trained was Somjit Jongjohor. 5-Although Somjit Jongjohor never turned professional himself he was a sensational amateur boxer who won pretty much everything an amateur could wish to win. He took gold medals at the Asian Games, the Asian Championships, the World Amateur Championships and the Olympics. His Asian Games gold medal came in 2002, at Flyweight, and another man who picked up gold at those very same games was Gennadiy Golovkin, who won his medal at Light Middleweight. 6-Following an excellent amateur career Gennadiy Golovkin turned professional and made his professional debut on May 6th 2006. On that very same day Den Junlaphan successfully defended the WBC Minimumweight title, defeating the previously unbeaten Rodel Mayol with a 12 round decision to retain the title and record his second defense of his second reign.
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Between 2002 and 2017 Japanese Fighter Takayuki Hosokawa (29-11-5, 9) ran up a 45 fight career, whilst fighting between Lightweight and Middleweight. He never made much of a name for himself internationally, despite spending a lengthy amount of time in the IBF world rankings at 154lbs, but was very much an interesting, entertaining and enigmatic fighter who managed to fit a lot into his lengthy career.
Hosokawa lost 3 of his first 5 bouts but slowly build up his experience and developed his skills. In 2014 his won his first title, the Japanese Light Middleweight title, before adding the IBF Asia and OPBF titles to his collection. Sadly though his reigns never really saw him define himself, despite climbing very high into the IBF rankings in 2015/2016. In 2017 Hosokawa called time on his career after issues with his eyes, and by that time he was 32 years old, with more 40 fights to his name and a career that he taken up much of his life. With that small profile out of the way, let us bring you 5 Midweek Facts about Takayuki Hosokawa! 1-Impressively Hosokawa passed his pro-test whilst he was still in high school and he was only 18 years and 6 days old when he made his professional debut in 2002! 2-Not only was Hosokawa young when he made his debut but he was also working at the time. He was employed by his family's sheet metal company. 3-Hosokawa's blood type is AB, the rarest in Japan with only around 10% population having it. According to Japanese Blood Type Theory this bloody type is typically a sign that the person with it is an eccentric, or weird person, and it's thought that AB blood types tend to make for good social workers, lawyers and teachers. Although it's a rare blood type in Japan Hosokawa isn't the only fighter with it, by any stretch and some fighters who reportedly have AB blood type include Ryo Akaho, Satoshi Hosono, Tomonobu Shimizu, Yota Sato and Kenichi Ogawa. 4-Interestingly Hosokawa shares his name with a number of other individuals, including the very well established Takayuki Hosokawa from the Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare, who does research on Biological Psychology, Cognitive Science and Neuropsychology. 5-During his career Hosokawa had the nickname "Gorilla". That nickname stuck with him and was also the name of the bar he opened in 2019, which was "bar the GORILLA" to give it it's full name. The bar is a short walk away from the Kitashinchi Station, in Osaka Prefecture. Sadly in 2020 the Coronavirus situation saw the bar being pretty much closed for the year, and as a result Hosokawa ended up driving a truck to make ends meet whilst the bar was closed. Not all great finish are clean knockouts. Sometimes we see a fighter take a huge shot, get dropped and some how get back to their feet. Although upright they have no idea where they are, what they are doing and there is no referee in their right mind who would let the fighter continue. Today we are going to look at one of those bouts in this week's "Reliving the Finish". It was a bout that probably could have been waved off when the recipient got dropped but the fighter's spirit on show, getting them on to their feet, was genuinely very impressive. Takashi Miura (28-2-2, 21) Vs Billy Dib (39-3-0-1, 23) By May 2015 Japan's Takashi Miura was proving himself as a top Super Featherweight. Although technically crude he was teak tough, had a great work rate, an incredible will to win and, most obviously, serious bang in his punches. The hard hitting Japanese southpaw had been dubbed "Bomber Left" due to how vicious his left hand was. He could be out boxed, he could be out sped and out thought. He was raw, defensively open, but that worked in his favour making opponent think he was easy to hit and allowing him a chance to catch them getting greedy. After winning the WBC Super Featherweight title, in April 2013, Miura had defended the title against a trio of Mexican challengers, Sergio Thompson, Dante Jardon and Edgar Puerta. Those wins had seen him earn a moniker as the "Mexicutioner" to go alongside his "Bomber Left" nickname. In his fourth defense however he ended a run of facing Mexicans as he faced off with Australian challenger Billy Dib. Coming into this bout Dib was a former IBF Featherweight champion who had made 3 defenses before losing the title to Evgeny Gradovich in 2013. He would lost a rematch to Gradovichi before moving up in weight and after picking up 3 wins got a show at Miura. Although a talented fighter, and one of the biggest names in Australian boxing, Dib was the under-dog going in. Whilst the challenger had the speed and skills to ask questions of Miura it was assumed the natural difference in power and Dib's somewhat poor defense would prove to be the difference. It was assumed, sooner or later, that Miura's power would get to Dib and either stop him, or put him into a very negative mindset of trying to just survive. From the off Miura took center ring whilst Dib tried to use his speed and movement to circle around the outside of the ring, and try to avoid the left hand of Miura. It was mostly negative stuff from Dib, but it was a tactic to see out the early storm and get a chance to get a read on Miura's power and timing. Dib was again rather negative in round 2, landing some shots and getting back on his toes. It was smart despite not being very entertaining, and whilst he may have done enough to claim the two rounds it very much felt like he was trying to fiddling his way to victory and avoid getting hit clean. Although it was smart from Dib it was a tactic that was going to need to be changed at some point. It wasn't a tactic that could work for 12 rounds against Miura. Sooner or later the champion was going to land. The wait to see Miura land clean didn't take long and came in round 3. Midway through the round Dib moved into the corner. It was something he had done numerous times through the fight. This time however he had slowed just a touch, feeling the effects of some solid body shots from Miura earlier in the round. Miura then connected with a huge left, followed by a right and another left. Down went Dib, hard. Somehow the challenger got back to his feet, but stumbled, before the referee decided to stop the contest. Credit to Dib for getting up, but he really had no idea where he was, and was stumbling like a drunk. On live showing it seemed it had just been a thunder bolt of a left hand that had taken out Dib. On replay however the brilliance of the combination was shown. The first left had stiffened the legs of Dib who looked out, a follow up right hook and another left hand had then finished off the job in brutal and explosive fashion. This was a gorgeous combination to finish off a frustrating challenger, and was proof of Miura's power, and the way he could close the show when he had his man hurt. Sadly for Miura he would lose the title 6 months later to Francisco Vargas, in a 2015 Fight of the Year contender and never managed to reclaim the title. As for Dib he managed to get another world title fight himself, losing to Tevin Farmer in 2018 for the IBF title, though was widely beaten by the slippery American.
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 Thai great Samart Payakaroon to former Filipino world champion Marvin Sonsona.
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 Samart Payakaroon is often regarded as one of, if not the, greatest Muay Thai fighter ever, and was also a success in professional boxing, winning the WBC Super Bantamweight title in 1986 when he defeated Lupe Pintor in just his 12th professional bout. Interesting Payakaroon was one of the fighters who won the now defunct Ring Magazine "Progress of the Year" award. The award was essentially finished in 1988 after Michael Nunn won it, and hasn't been seen since. Interestingly Payakaroon was one of a number of Asian fighters who won this award over the years, with another being Shozo Saijo, who won it in 1968. 2-As a professional fighter Shozo Saijo had a short career, running from 1964 to 1971, but achieved a lot during those years, and managed to squeeze in 38 professional bouts. His most notable achievement wasn't just winning the WBA Featherweight title in 1968 but doing so on American soil, making him the first Japanese fighter to win a world title away from home. The next Japanese fighter to win a world title on the road was Kuniaki Shibata, who actually achieved the feat twice. 3-Between 1965 and 1977 Kuniaki Shibata ran up an excellent 47-6-3 (25) record and was a 3-time world champion, the first Japanese fighter to achieve that feat. He is best known for his exploits at world level, which included huge wins over Vicente Saldivar, Ben Villaflor and Ricardo Arredondo. Before he'd even won a world title however he had suffered 2 professional losses, including one to often forgotten Korean Hubert Kang. 4-Korean fighter Hubert Kang was a stalwart of the Korean scene from the mid 1960's to the late 1970's. During his long career he fought a lot of notable fighters including the now often forgotten Wongso Suseno, the first ever Indonesian fighter to win an international title. 5-As mentioned Wongo Suseno won an international title, the OPBF Light Welterweight title, in 1975. He successfully defended the belt twice before losing it in 1977 to Filipino Moises Cantoja. Another fighter who later went on to win that very same title was Filipino Morris East, who won the title in 1992 with a brilliant win over Pyung Sub Kim in South Korea. 6-Sadly Morris East will always be a case of "what could have been?" He won the WBA Light Welterweight title in 1992 with a huge upset win over Akinobu Hiranaka, at the age of just 19, and is still the youngest Filipino to ever win a world title. Another "what could have been?" for Filipino boxing is that of Marvin Sonsona, who also won a world title as a teenager, and failed to build on his world title win, which happened in 2009. In recent years we have seen a lot of Japanese fighters being fast-tracked, with fighters like Kazuto Ioka and Naoya Inoue being moved incredibly quickly as prospects. It's not a new thing however, and before the likes of Inoue and Ioka there was plenty of other Japanese hopefuls moved quickly and aggressively. One such fighter was Hideyasu Ishihara (16-4-1, 10), who sadly didn't reach the top of the sport, despite very high expectations on his shoulders.
The then 22 year old Ishihara made his debut in 1998, after a relatively impressed amateur career, and in just his second professional bout he was fighting in 10 rounders, with his team expecting him to be able to be raced at an incredible pace. Sadly however he had a number of early stumbles, losing 2 of his first 6 bouts, before rebuilding winning the OPBF Super Flyweight title in 2002 and later getting two shots at the WBA Super Flyweight title. For those who don't know much about Ishihara we thought he'd be a great subject to look at this week, in the latest 5 Midweek Facts article, as we bring you some facts about Hideyasu Ishihara. 1-In his professional debut Ishihara defeated the then Japanese Flyweight champion Nolito Cabato. Cabato, a Japanese based Filipino fighter, had had over 50 professional bouts and had notable wins over future world champions Masamori Tokuyama and Celes Kobayashi, as well as former world champion Manny Melchor. The victory for Ishihara resulted in him getting a world ranking after his debut. 2-He was so highly thought of when he turned professional that not only did he get matched with Cabato on debut but he would then challenge for the Japanese Flyweight title in just his third professional bout! Sadly Ishihara's ambitions were too big at the time, and he would be stopped by Celes Kobayashi in the 7th round of their 10 round contest. Had he won he would have set a record for the fewest fights to win a Japanese title. 3-We often talk about the Korakuen Hall being the home of Japanese boxing, and many notable fighters run up a lot of their bouts at the "Holy Land". That wasn't the case for Ishihara who only fought at Korakuen Hall once in his 21 fight professional career, and never notched a win there. His "home venue", so to speak, was instead the International Conference Hall in Nagoya, where he had 16 of his 21 bouts. In fact only two of his first 18 bouts wasn't at the International Conference Hall. Rather oddly his final 3 bouts all took place away from the International Conference Hall, a venue he was 14-1-1 in! For those who did the maths his record outside of the International Conference Hall was 2-3. On a similar note he never scored a single win outside of Nagoya! 4-Ishihara shares his name with someone involved in the video game industry. We're not totally sure which company "that" Hideyasu Ishihara works for but he's been involved in arts and graphics for things like Sonic Generations, Sonic Unleashed and Dead of Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, as well as receiving a special thanks in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 5-After his career he became a high school teacher and began working at the Chukyo High School, as a social studies teacher . He would later become the head of the school's boxing club and train none other than Kosei Tanaka and Kento Hatanaka, who he now trains as a professional. An interesting, though often over-looked fighter, is Koji Kobayashi (24-4-3, 15) who held the WBC and Lineal Flyweight title in the mid 1980's. His career was short, lasting less than 7 years between his debut and his final career bout, but he was someone who left a mark on the sport and helped establish one of the main Japanese gyms.
Kobayashi wasn't a typical boxer. He wasn't someone who had a long amateur career before turning professional but he was someone who had a dangerous straight left hand, under-rated skills and a suspect chin. In fact all 4 of his losses were by stoppage. He was a dangerous fighter, but one lacking durability and this generally made his fights fun to watch. They could, genuinely end, at any moment making his fights ones that you simply had to watch if you could To help shine a light on Kobayashi and his career we've decided that this week we're bringing you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Koji Kobayashi 1-Kobayashi graduated from the Nishogakusha University High School. Sadly it's not somewhere that has given us many boxers, with Kobayashi being the most notable, by far. One other fighter to graduate was former 4-time Japanese title challenger Yoshihiro Yamamoto, he's a distant second in terms of most notable fighters to have graduated from there. 2-Unlike many fighters, who turn to boxing for money, fame or to chase a sporting ambition, Kobayashi took to boxing to help maintain his health and fitness. He was reported not very good at sport and physical activity and before he started boxing was beaten in an arm wrestling contest by a girl. 3-Prior to taking to boxing Kobayashi had planned to be a designer. Of course the whole boxing thing worked out surprisingly well for him. 4-In February 1980 Kobayashi suffered his first professional loss, losing in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final at Flyweight to future world champion Jiro Watanabe inside a round. This was one of the very rare occasions where the two fighters in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final both went on to win a world title. 5-Kobayashi was the first world champion from the Kadoebi Gym, which has also guided Eagle Den Junlaphan, Yusuke Kobori and Yukinori Oguni to world titles. 6-When Kobayashi lost the WBC Flyweight title to Gabriel Bernal in April 1984 he was the sixth successive champion to lose the belt in his first defense. This run began in 1982, when Prudencio Cardona dethroned Antonio Avelar, and ended when Kobayashi's conqueror Gabriel Bernal notched a success defense against against Antoine Montero. 7-A rather staggering 28 of Kobasyhi's 31 bouts took place at Korakuen Hall. The ones that didn't took place in either Osaka or Fukui. 8-Rather strangely Kobayshi's final bout came on his 28th birthday! Sadly he wasn't given a birthday treat to remember as he was stopped in 7 rounds by Yoshiyuki Uchida, and decided to retire after that loss. 9-The Kadoebi Gym have a comic strip about Kobayashi on their website. The 15 part series features Kobayashi's full career among it's panels. He is one of only 3 fighters to be given this treatment by the gym, along with Den Junlaphan and Yusuke Kobori. 10-After retiring from boxing Kobayashi became a public servant 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 Junto Nakatani to Samart Payakaroon.
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-During his career Junto Nakatani has used a track from Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi's 2007 album "Come on Stand up!" for his ring entrance. Within the credits for that album is a special thanks to former WBA Super Flyweight champion Hideki Todaka, who actually had a song on the album recorded for him, "Fighting Boxer". The link between Nagabuchi and Todaka pre-dates this 2007 album, by several years, with Todaka having used Nagabuchi's song "Hold your last chance", among others, as his own ring entrance music. 2-The first title that Hideki Todaka ever won was the Japanese Light Flyweight title, which he defended just once before vacating due to a hand injury. Another fighter who held that title was Ryo Miyazaki, who like Todaka vacated the title after just a single defense of the belt. 3-During his professional career Ryo Miyazaki suffered just 2 professional defeats. One of those was his final bout, a loss to Ryoichi Taguchi, whilst the other was a massive upset loss on December 31st 2013, when he was stopped in 3 rounds by the little known Teeraphong Utaida, aka Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr. 4-The talented Teeraphong Utaida, better known as Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr, isn't the only boxer in his family. In fact his father Thongchai Utaida, or Fahlan Sakkreerin, was also a fighter, with his career spanning from 1988 to 2005 and more than 60 professional bouts! 5-Notably Thongchai Utaida, or the original Fahlan if you will, wasn't just a busy fighter with a lot of longevity but he was also one of the first IBF Minimumweight champions. He claimed the title in 1990 and made an impressive 7 defenses of the title before being upset by Manny Melchor in 1992, ending what was the longest reign of the title up to that point in time. Another Thai fighter who has held that title was Samuth Sithnaruepol, the second IBF Minimumweight champion. 6-Thailand's Samuth Sithnaruepol is known for several things. He was, as mentioned, the second IBF Minimumweight champion, he was also the first OPBF Minimumweight champion, beating Kenji Ono for the title in 1986, and he was involved in the last 15 round world title bout, beating In Kyu Hwang in that bout. As the OPBF Minimumweight champion Samuth made 4 defenses of the belt, the first of which came on June 20th 1986. On that very same date Samart Payakaroon fought over in France, beating Rafael Gandarilla in Paris! Former Japanese Super Featherweight champion Daiki Kaneko (26-6-3, 18) was a fighter who deserved a lot more attention internationally than he got during his 12 year, 35 fight career. He was someone who consistently put in great performances and was a genuine must watch fighter with his toughness, under-rated power, and aggressive mentality. He as never a world beater, but was also never an easy out for a fighter and famously gave Takashi Uchiyama one of his toughest bouts at the end of 2013. For those who perhaps aren't too aware of Kaneko we've decided to look at him this week, for this weeks 5 Midweek Facts article. Before we get on to the facts however we'll just quickly look at Kaneko's career which saw him win the Japanese title in 2012, with a TKO win over Seiichi Okada, and defend it 4 times before facing Uchiyama in 2013. Coming into that bout Kaneko had won 13 in a row, with 10 stoppages, and was riding an unbeaten run going back more than 5 years. Despite losing to Uchiyama he did drop "KO Dynamite", and the bout won the Japanese award for the best bout of the year. Sadly however he went 6-3 after losing to Uchiyama, though those 9 bouts included fantastic contests with Jomthong Chuwatana, Masao Nakamura and Pavel Malikov, which are all worth watching and very entertaining. Following the loss to Malikov, in 2017, Kaneko hung up the gloves. With those details out of the way, lets take a look at this weeks facts! 1-In high school Kaneko was a shot putter before taking up boxing. He first entered a boxing gym in the third year of junior high school, doing so in Toyohashi, before later learning about the Yokohama Hikari Gym, which would be the gym he turned professional under. 2-The boxing bug bit Kaneko after he saw bouts featuring Takanori Hatakeyama and Joichiro Tatsuyoshi. He then spoke to his father, who was also a fan of the sport, about fighting himself. 3-Kaneko's ring entrance music was a rock song recorded by the legendary Eikichi Yazawa. The song, entitled "Tomaranai Ha ~ Ha", translates roughly as "I Can't Stop Ha Ha" and we've included a video of Yazawa performing the song at the end of the article. 4-Interestingly Kaneko shares his name with a Japanese football player, born in 1998, and a kickboxer, born in 1994. Making him one of 3 sporting Daiki Kaneko's. Whilst not a rare name it's surprisingly to see 3 sports people all with the same name in totally different fields. Also, on the subject of names, he was nicknamed "Lightning". 5-Like many Japanese fighters based in East Japan Kaneko fought most of his career at Korakuen Hall, with 30 of his 35 professional bouts taking place in the "Holy Land" of Japanese boxing. Amazingly however he fought just a single bout in the city he grew up in, Toyohashi, and that was his return bout following his 2013 loss to Takeshi Uchiyama. His other bouts outside of Korakuen Hall were an early career bout at the Nanba Grand Kagetsu, in Osaka; his bout with Uchiyama at the Ota-City General Gymnasium; a late career bout in Shizuoka; and his final bout, in Russia against Pavel Malikov. When we look back at forgotten world champions one name that seems to rarely be mentioned is Celes Kobayashi (24-5-3, 14), who fought 1992 and 2002 and won the WBA Super Flyweight title late in his career. His time at the top was short, and in fact he was a world champion for less than a year, but his career was certainly a notable one, and he continues to be involved in the sport, in a number of ways. Whilst never a "star of the sport" Kobayashi is, sadly, very much a forgotten fighter, despite winning a belt only around 20 years ago. With that in mind we've decided this week to shine a light Kobayashi and share 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Celes Kobayashi 1-Kobayashi went to the Ibaraki Prefectural Iwai Nishi High School, which was closed in 2010, when it merged with another local school in Ibaraki. Sadly he's one of the very, very few notable people from the High School. The other notables are a former Motorcycle racer and a former professional soccer player. 2-The ring name of "Celes" was taken from the company he used to work for. His real name is Shoji Kobayashi, though through his boxing career, including his post-in ring career, he has always been regarded as "Celes" 3-Former fighter Toshimi Miura, better known as Crusher Miura, served as Kobayashi's trainer at the International Boxing Sports Gym in Tokyo. Interestingly Kobayashi was the third, and final, world champion from the gym, following in the footsteps of Royal Kobayashi and Leopard Tamakuma. Unsurprisingly the other notable fighters at the gym also had interesting, and often unique, names due to the gym's policy of having fighters adopt names, typically an English word, to go along with their family name when they became a JBCranked fighter. 4-Kobayashi's ring walk music was, usually, "Anthem of the World" by Stratovarious. We've included the track at the end of this video for those wanting to give it a listen. 5-Kobayashi is one of the many fighters who lost their professional debut before winning a world title. In fact he lost 2 of his first 5 bouts, and also came up short in his first 2 Japanese title fights and his first world title fight. As a side note, his draw with Malcolm Tunacao, in his first world title fight, was reportedly down to a scoring error by Korean judge Dae Eun Chung, who scored in favour of Tunacao resulting in a split decision draw. 6-During his 32 fight career Kobayashi never fought in January. It was the only month that he never had a professional bout in. Whilst bouts are less common in January in Japan, that still appears to be a strange stat for a man who had a decade long career. 7-On a similar note to the previous fact 3 of Kobayashi's most notable bouts came in the month of March. These were his 1999 win over Hideyasu Ishihara, who was a very highly touted prospect at the time and Kobayashi's win boosted his career massively, his 2001 win over Leo Gamez to become the WBA Super Flyweight world champion, and his 2002 loss to Alexander Munoz, which saw Kobayashi lose the world title and subsequently retire from the sport aged 29. 8-In 2002 Koabayashi released an autobiography, talking about his life as a boxer and an office worker, and the following year he released a second book, this time about how to improve as a boxer. Rather surprisingly the autobiography is a very small book, at just 175 pages whilst his other book is even short, at a listed 159 pages. 9-Following his retirement from the ring Kobayashi remained at the International Gym, where he worked as a trainer and passed on his knowledge to a younger generation. That was until 2003 when he left the gym and opened up the Celes Boxing Sports Gym, the same gym that still exists to this day and is best known for having developed Ryosuke Iwasa into a world champion. 10-The Celes gym isn't the only current focus for the former champion. He also currently works as commentator for G+, doing the commentary for their Dynamic Glove series of shows. He's regarded as one of the most knowledgable men in Japanese boxing, and passes that knowledge on well with his insight as a commentator. He also contributes to the Sports Hochi as a writer and has featured in a number of "talent" activities as well We're back with another Shocker this week and it's an interesting one that often goes overlooked by fans just a decade on, yet at the time it was a huge surprise and gave one the top Flyweights of the modern era a second chance to shine at the top of the division. It was, at the time, one of the most surprising results, and is still a huge shock when we look back at the results from 2010. Date March 27th 2010 Venue Ariake Colosseum, Tokyo, Japan Fighters Koki Kameda (22-0, 14) Vs Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (74-3-1, 38) Going back just over a decade now the Kameda brothers were the big story in Japanese boxing. Daiki Kameda and Koki Kameda were two of the biggest names in Japanese boxing and their younger brother, Tomoki, was starting to generate some buzz as a fighter in Mexico. The trio were regarded as the future of Japanese boxing and Koki was really looking like a star. He was a man who had strong support in Japan and also had enough haters in the country to have fans wanting to see him get beat. He was un-Japanese in many ways. He wasn't humble and respectful, but instead a loud mouth and someone who seemingly got his attitude from professional wrestling, rather than the roots of Japanese boxing culture. At this point he was 23 years old and had seemingly found his weight, having put in a solid, if dramaless, performance to beat Daisuke Naito for the WBC Flyweight title. A title he was expected to hold until he eventually out grew the weight. Kameda's first challenge as the champion was a mandatory defense against Thai veteran Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. The Thai veteran was a legendary fighter by this point, but was assumed to be past his best. In fact at 33 and with almost 80 bouts to his name it was though he was losing to father time. He had lost the WBC title in July 2007 to Daisuke Naito and had failed to recapture the title in a rematch, their 4th bout, when the bout ended in a split decision draw. That loss to Naito had come almost 3 years before this bout and in the interim his only win of Note was an "interim"title fight against Julio Cesar Miranda. At his best Wonjongkam was something special. He was an under-rated puncher, as Malcolm Tunacao and Daisuke Naito would attest to, but also a talented boxer, who knew how to use the ring, he was smart and well schooled. At 33 years old however he was ancient for a Flyweight, and was the clear under-dog against the rising star of Japan. Not only was Wonjongkam seen as old but was also up against things, travelling to Japan for the bout. Whilst judging in Japan for bouts like is done, typically, by neutral judges, it was still assumed that the atmosphere and occasion would still sway the judges to favour the unbeaten Japanese champion. Afterall, it had happened in the past, when Kameda beat Juan Jose Landaeta for the WBA Light Flyweight title in 2006. From the off Wonjongkam pressed forward, taking center ring and being the aggressor whilst Kameda got on the back foot, circled on the outside of the ring and didn't really let his hands go much. When Kameda did open up he looked much quicker, but for much of the round seemed happy to be very conservative and negative, rather than making his youth count. There was very few in and out raids and he looked to be more focused on making Wonjongkam miss, rather than landing anything himself. The same pattern also seemed to be seen in round 2, though Kameda was certainly caught cleaner in the second than he had in the opening round and seemed to be holding on after a good single shot. Kameda seemed to be off to a bad start and he really struggled to get things going. He was much quicker, but much more timid than Wonjongkam, who was doing enough to wins rounds, without doing a lot. His 33 year old legs weren't being forced to work hard, he wasn't needing to mov through the gears nor was he ever being backed up by Kameda who used a tactic that would become rather a regular thing with him. Ultra negativity. In round 5 however Kameda did get a break, as the WBC's accidental foul rule saw Wonjongkam being deducted a point after a head clash. It was however scant consolation for Kameda who still seemed like he hadn't woken up or realised he was being out boxed by a 33 year old who seemed to be fighting a reserved fight himself. Thankfully after being cut, by the headclash in round 5, Kameda seemed to finally come awake. It was as if he was pissed off by feeling blood trickling down his face. Unfortunately Kameda really didn't keep his foot on the gas for long, and by the end of the round it was hard to give it to the local star. Kameda did however show more ambition in the middle portion of the fight, and made a legitimate attempt to swing things in his favour in rounds 7, 8 and 9. His best rounds. Amazingly after 8 rounds one of the judges some how had Kameda leading, 76-75. The other two judges had it 77-75 and 77-74 to Wonjongkam. After having a few solid rounds it seemed like Kameda was turning the bout around and, at last, making Wonjongkam work at an uncomfortable tempo. He was starting to push around the old man, who had gotten off to an early lead but was going to have to see out the second half of the bout. Amazingly however Kameda let the momentum slip away from him. Rather than keeping up the work rate he had shown after the midway point, and fighting in short but eye catching bursts, he went back to being negative and let the play slip away. It was similar to what we would become accustomed to over the years that followed from Kameda, who showed touches of genius, but lacked a champions mentality. Instead of Kameda keeping the charge going and trying to pull the bout his way, he got negative again, waiting to counter punch Wonjongkam, who because of his own low output gave Kameda very few opportunities. Kameda managed to have moments, but there was nothing sustained and a good shot from Kameda was never followed up, with Wonjongkam managed to occasionally string his shots together. Even when it was very clear Kameda needed to do a lot more, he didn't. He made no effort to turn the bout around in the championship rounds. He was happy cruising, in the hope that the judges would some how find a way to score the rounds his way. It wasn't to be. After 12 rounds we went to the scorecards. 114-114, 115-112 and 116-112. A majority decision...that went to Wonjongkam. It was the right call, even if Predrag Aleksic's even scorecard was one that left much to the imagination. The bout was never one that could have been scored even. After this bout Wonjongkam went on a solid but short second reign, beating Suriyan Sor Rungvisai, Takuya Kogawa, and Edgar Sosa before losing to Sonny Boy Jaro in 2012 before retiring in 2013. Kameda on the other hand would win WBA secondary honours at Bantamweight, becoming a "3 weight world champion" in the process, and later clash with Kohei Kono in a bout for the WBA Super Flyweight title, before retiring in 2015. Remarkably in 2018 these two men got back in ring together for an exhibition which saw Kameda beat up the then 40 year old Wonjongkam in a bout the JBC refused to sanction as a professional bout. By then however it was clear Kameda just wanted a swansong to retire for good on, whilst Wonjongkam was likely happy for an extra payday as part of an exhibition event, even if he did get knocked out. |
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