For today's "Reliving the Finish" we though we'd share quite an obscure KO from a Japanese domestic level bout from back in 2009. This is not a bout we expect many fans have seen, but the stoppage to it is worthy of being on a highlight reel. Notably it did feature a man we expect most fight fans to have heard of, and came when he was still a rising hopeful on the domestic scene. The recipient on the other hand wasn't really well known and never really did anything of note afterwards, despite continuing in ring with their career until 2013. Hisashi Amagasa (12-3-2, 10) vs Koji Nagata (7-3-3) At the end of 2014 Hisashi Amagasa's name became one of the most searched boxing names, with nobody outside of Japan really having any idea who he was when he was announced as the next challenger for Guillermo Rigondeaux. By the end of December 31st 2014 however his face was plastered everywhere on boxing websites. He looked a swollen, bloodied, beaten mess. He had twice dropped Rigondeaux but had paid the price and been left with some nasty facial injuries as a result. Following that bout he would remain a figure of interest in the wider boxing world, getting a notable fight in the UK with Josh Warrrington in 2016 before fading back into international obscurity in his homeland. For this KO we need to rewind way before all of that however and send ourselves back to May 2009. Amagasa, then aged 23, took on domestic foe Koji Nagata. At the time Amagasa was seen a long, rangy fighter with power. He had won 12 of his 17 bouts and stopped 10. Nagata on the other hand was a 24 year old who had lost on debut before reeling off a 7 fight unbeaten run. Heading into the Amagasa fight things had started to cool down again for Nagata, who had gone from 5-1-2 to 7-3-3. He lacked power, but was a capable fighter. Not a future champion, but a capable fighter all the same. Through 6 rounds Nagata had given the taller, longer Amagasa some real issues, he had held his own for the most part and even tested Amagasa's chin with some solid shots up top. Amagasa, to his credit, stayed in to the bout, and had belief in his power, but his skills, which were never great, were certainly not impressing. Nagata looked several levels above Amagasa in terms of skills, but lacked the power needed to make Amagasa really pay for his mistakes. Sadly for Nagata his good work was all undone mid way in round 7 when Amagasa landed what was probably the punch of his career. The shot was a brutal left uppercut that landed clean. The shot landed through the guard, snapping back the head of Nagata who crashed on to the canvas. The shot just turned out the lights on Nagata who stayed down for quite some time. The towel came in from his corner mid way through the count. To help Nagata a stretcher was brought into get him out of the ring safely, and thankfully there was no linger issues for him. Despite Nagata having no long term issues he wouldn't return to the ring for 9 months, defeating Tomo Kawai on his ring return. Sadly for him however his career never really took off, and he retired in 2013 with a record of 9-7-4. As for Amagsa, he would win Japanese and OPBF titles, as well as have fights with Rigondeaux and Warrington, before retiring with a 33-7-2 (21) record and later becoming a trainer at one of the gyms that Takashi Uchiyama set up.
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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 former WBO Bantamweight champion Ratanachai Sor Vorapin to Japanese star Junto Nakatani.
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-Thai fighter Ratanachai Sor Vorapin had an incredibly long career which spanned for over 80 bouts in total. During that time he fought a genuine list of notable fighters, including Mark Johnson, Gerry Penalosa, Yoddamrong Sithyodthong, Tim Austin, Chris John, Cruz Carbajal and Jhonny Gonzalez. His most embarrassing loss however came very late in his career against Filipino Ramie Laput in 2009, when Ratanachai was disqualified for kicking Laput! 2-Although not too well known Ramie Laput was a highly experienced fighter who fought from 1998 to 2011 and won a number of minor titles during his 48 fight career. Rather notably all but 1 of his bouts was fought in Asia, with the exception being his 2009 clash with Zsolt Bedak, which came in Austria and saw Laput being stopped in 7 rounds. 3-Several years after stopping Laput we saw Hungarian fighter Zsolt Bedak face off with another Filipino fighter, as he took on Nonito Donaire, the then WBO Bantamweight champion, in 2016 on a show in Cebu City. On that same show were several other notable Filipino fighters, including Jeo Santisima, Rocky Fuentes and Mark Magsayo, as well as international fighters like Paul Fleming and Chris Avalos. 4-American fighter Chris Avalos, who lost to Mark Magsayo on that previously mentioned Filipino show, has fought several Asian fighters during his career, not just Magsayo. Another of those was Japanese fighter Yasutaka Ishimoto, who he stopped in Macau in 2014. 5-Sadly Yasutaka Ishimoto is an often over-looked and ill-remembered fighter, though he did later win the Japanese Super Bantamweight title, winning it in 2015 when he out pointed Yusaku Kuga. He is however better known for his big upset win over former world champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, which came in Macau in 2013. On that card was the professional debut of Zou Shiming. 6-Chinese fighter Zou Shiming turned professional with a lot of hype and expectation following a very successful amateur career. Sadly however he never really set the world alight in the professional ranks, having an underwhelming career despite winning the WBO flyweight title in 2016 and becoming one of the very, very few Chinese world champion. Amazingly he was also the first Asian fighter to win the WBO Flyweight title, though the 3 that followed him have all been Japanese. They include Junto Nakatani! From 1994 to 2010 Japanese fighter Hindenobu Honda (33-8, 15) was regarded as one of the best technical fighters in Japan. Although highly skilled Honda never managed to win a world world title though he did have a successful career that saw him winning a Japanese title, twice fighting for world titles and challenging for an OPBF title.
During his 41 fight career Honda managed to face a genuine who's who of the lower weights. These included bouts with Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Alexander Munoz, Nobuo Nashiro, Alexander Bakhtin, Daigo Nakahiro, Konosuke Tomiyama and Malcolm Tunacao. In just his 10th bout Honda beat Ryuji Muramatsu for the Japanese Light Flyweight title. He would later go to make 7 defenses before moving on to his first world title fight in 2002, challenging Wonjongkam. A year later he would get his second world title fight, losing to Munoz. Following that loss Honda was never quite the same and went 7-5 (1) in his last 12 bouts, after beginning his career 26-3 (14). Soon after his 8th loss he retired, ending his career aged 35. With that small introduction out of the way, let us bring you 5 Midweek facts about Hidenobu Honda! 1-As an amateur boxer Honda ran up a record of 11-6 (1) and was the captain of his high school boxing team, at the Nissho Gakuen High School in Miyazaki City. Despite his short amateur career he managed to earn a #10 domestic ranking on the junior scene at Light Flyweight. Interestingly he also competed in Shaolin Karate whilst at high school. 2-Going back to the Nissho Gakuen High School, Honda was the second Japanese champion from the school. He had followed in the foot steps of Takeyuki Akagi, who had won the Japanese Super Featherweight title 3 times in the 1980's and 1990's. Since Honda's reign as the Japanese Flyweigth champion only one other fighter from the high school has become a Japanese champion, and that was Daishi Nagata. 3-Honda's nickname was the "Defense Master", due to his high level of defensive skills and the slippery nature of his boxing. Surprisingly he didn't have this nickname when he started the sport, but instead adopted this nickname in the late 1990's, whilst climbing up through the world rankings of both the WBA and WBC. 4-On December 23rd 2010 Honda took part in his retirement ceremony which included a spar with Malcolm Tunacao, the man who had beaten Honda in what was Honda's final professional bout. This took place on the under-card of the WBA Super Flyweight title bout between Hugo Fidel Cazares and Hiroyuki Kudaka. Rather interestingly there was a lot of big Japanese boxing names in the crowd for this, including Hiroki Ioka, Masamori Tokuyama, Nobuhiro Ishida and Ismael Salas. 5-In 2015 Honda became the Chairman of the Kanagawa Atsumi Boxing Gym, in Kanagawa. When it comes to fan friendly fighters from the past 10 years or saw few were as consistently entertaining as former 2-time WBA Super Flyweight champion Kohei Kono (33-12-1, 14), who not only excited fans but also proved that records are for DJ's. Despite ending his career with 12 losses Kono was a 2-time world champion, spent the better part of a decade in the Ring Magazine divisional rankings, competed in 10 world title fights and scored notable wins against the likes of Tepparith Kokietgym, Denkaosan Kaovichit and Koki Kameda.
During a career that ran from 2000 to 2018 Kono achieved an incredible amount, He was the East Japan Rookie of the Year winner, a Japanese champion, a 2-time OPBF champion and a 2-time WBA champion. He faced a genuine who's who, including Nobuo Nashiro, Tomas Rojas, Yota Sato, Tepparith Kokietgym, Liborio Solis, Denkaosan Kaovichit, Koki Kameda, Luis Concepcion, Naoya Inoue and Jason Moloney. He also put on thrillers, not just with some of those guys but also fighters like Teppei Kikui, with the third bout between Kono and Kikui being something really special. Rather than talking about the obvious, Kono being exciting, we're here today to shine a light on more of Kono's life and career as we share 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Kohei Kono 1-Prior to turning to boxing Kono was interested in track and field, and had actually been part of the track and field club at high school. He switched to boxing after he began to read a book entitled "Become a professional boxer in 6 months". He would later begin boxing at the Watanabe gym in 1999 under the tutelage of Tomoaki Takahashi. 2-Unlike most world champion's Kono's amateur record is not a good one. In fact it's widely reported that he went 2-2 in the unpaid ranks, before turning professional in 2000. 3-Similarly Kono is also among the rather small number of world champions who lost on debut, losing a 4 round decision to Yoshiaki Nitta on November 22nd 2000, in what was an all debutant bout. Following this loss Kono's father changed his views on boxing, and went from not wanting to see his son fighting to positively helping Kohei train, and turned his living room into a practice area. 4-In regards to his professional debut, it came on November 22nd 2000, just a single day before Kono's 20th birthday! Rather oddly it was one of just 3 bouts he had during the month of November. The other's were in 2002 and 2003. 5- In 2013 Kono, alongside Tadashi Yuba, appeared in the music video for Kavka Shishido's track "Kiken na Futari". The two boxers featured in an under-ground fight in the video. The track it's self broke into the top 65 in the Japanese Oricon Singles chart 6-Kono was reportedly very shrewd with money and it wad reported that his living costs, in 2013 and early 2014 was between 20,000 and 30,000 Yen a month. This would have been around $200 to $300 at the time. Kono's then promoter Hitoshi Watanabe explained that Kono doesn't drink alcohol, didn't eat out, and was able to live off just his boxing income at the time. This essentially allowed him to focus on his boxing career, and he gave up the part time job he had had when he won the Japanese national title in 2007. 7-Kono was given two different nicknames, for very different reasons. The most famous of those was "Tough Boy", due to his incredible toughness and durability through his career. The other much less well known, was the "Japanese Pacquiao", which he seemingly adopted for a short time in 2015 after a short training camp with Freddie Roach. The nickname came from his similar looks to Pacquiao and was something he was called by a female employee at a duty free shop when he arrived back home in Japan. Sadly the "Japanese Pacquiao" moniker seemed to be a very, very short lived one. 8- Incidentally Kono was also mistaken for Pacquiao at one of the WBA's General Assembly's, with the two looking incredibly similar at the time. 9-On October 7th 2015 Kono got married. Interestingly his wife was the daughter of well known Japanese folk singer Minami Rambo. 10-When he retired in 2018 he held a press conference with Hitoshi Watanabe and revealed a few interesting details about his career and what he was hoping to do after boxing. During this press conference he explained the best moment of his career was his with Tepparith Kokietgym, the most exciting was his bout with Koki Kameda and that he was planning to take over the Gaienmae Chiropractic Center, which is run by his father. Bonus fact - 1 - It's often been reported that had Kono lost in his December 2012 bout with Tepparith Kokietgym he would have retired from boxing. 2 - Kono's bout with Koki Kameda is the first, and so far only, time we've had an all-Japanese world title bout on US soil. This was because Kameda, at the time, was unable to secure a license to fight in Japan and was the WBA mandatory for Kono, forcing the bout to be held on neutral territory for both men. 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 Toshiyuki Igarashi to former WBO Bantamweight champion Ratanachai Sor Vorapin.
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-Japan's Toshiyuki Igarashi is pretty well known in interesting boxing circles due to his short reign as the WBC and Linear Flyweight champion between 2012 and 2013, which saw him win the title from Sonny Boy and lose the belt to Akira Yaegashi. Prior to winning the WBC title he has been the Japanese Flyweight champion and the Japanese "interim" champion. In fact he's one of only 3 fighters to have won the "interim" and "regular" version of the Japanese Flyweight title, along with Kenji Yoshida and Masayuki Kuroda. 2-During his long career Masayuki Kuroda has fought for world titles several times, losing to both Juan Carlos Reveco and Moruti Mthalane. Whilst those bouts are somewhat well known to international fans, given they were world title bouts, what is often over-looked is the fact Kuroda also the "opponent" for Naoya Inoue's pro-test bout, the sparring style bout that Japanese fighters have before being able to get a professional license. 3-After getting his professional license Naoya Inoue was raced through the professional ranks, winning the Japanese Light Flyweight title in his 4th bout, the OPBF title in his 5th bout an the WBC title in his 6th bout. We suspect most fans will be aware that he beat Ryoichi Taguchi for the Japanese title and Adrian Hernandez for the WBC title, who were both world class fighters. Less well known is the man he beat for the OPBF title, Filipino fighter Jerson Mancio. 4-Although not massively well known Jerson Mancio did fight several notable fighters during his career, not just the "Monster", another was Marlon Tapales, who actually gave Mancio his first professional loss way back in 2009, more than 4 years before his loss to Inoue. 5-Although never a massive name in the sport Marlon Tapales was an under-rated fighter in his pomp and was often over-looked. Despite that he managed to record several big wins during his career, including stoppage wins over the then touted Shohei Omori and an excellent win in Thailand against Punglang Sor Singyu, to win the WBO Bantamweight title. 6-As we write this Pungluang Sor Singyu is the only 2-time WBO Bantamweight champion in history, a rather striking little fact. He is also one of only 2 Thai's to have ever won the title with the only other Thai being Ratanachai Sor Vorapin, who held the title from 2004 to 2005! Former Japanese Super Featherweight champion Isao Ishikawa (12-4, 11), who was better known as Isao Mano, is not a fighter that we expect many fight fans to be too aware of, though he certainly had an interesting career, and is one of the many fighters out there who probably should have accomplished a lot more than he actually did. In fact he's someone who showed a lot of potential as a teenager in the amateur ranks but never really clicked when it came to the professional ranks.
With Mano not being a particularly well known fighter we thought he was an ideal choice to talk about this week in our latest 5 Midweek facts article, as we look to shine a light on another retired former fighter. Before go into the fact we'll quickly run over Mano's career which spanned from 1984 to 1994, and saw him fight 16 professional bouts. Amazingly those bouts lasted a combined 50 rounds, and only 2 of those 16 bouts actually went to the final bell. Win or lose Mano's bouts tended to be short and dramatic and only a single one of his contests saw round 6! He was, for all intents, a bit of a glass cannon, and for fans watching his fights were rarely dull. 1-As an amateur Ishikawa was impressive, despite only notching up an 11-2 record. He began boxing when he was in school and came in the final 8 of the 1982 Inter-High school competition. His potential was obvious and and he quickly joined the Morioka gym to begin his professional career at the age of 17. Despite his youth there was real expectations on his shoulders. 2-Sadly for Ishikawa those expectations on his shoulders saw him becoming over-confident and he ended up losing his first 2 bouts, both in 1984. Following those set backs he retired from boxing with a 0-2 record, aged just 17! 3-Surprisingly Ishikawa turned turned professional to help his mother with finances. This must have made his early retirement doubly hard. During his retirement he did manage to do a number of jobs, including being a waiter and a long distance driver. 4-Years after retiring Ishikawa had a chance meeting in the with Eiji Morioka, the chairman of the Morioka Gym, who had previously handled his professional career. That meeting lead to Ishikawa returning to professional boxing, and restarting his career in 1991, under the "Isao Mano" ring name. He completely turned his career around with 10 straight victories from 1991 to 1993, including winning the Rookie of the Year in 1992. This comeback saw him go from 0-2 to 10-2 (9) in a remarkable career turn around. 5-Mano's unbeaten streak came to an end in June 1993, when Toshikazu Suzuki stopped him in 4 rounds. Despite that loss Mano got a shot at Japanese Super Featherweight champion Kenichiro Kojo less than 3 months later and scored a major upset win over Kojo, who was enjoying his second reign as the champion. Interestingly Mano's title win came via 10th round TKO in Mano's only bout to go past 5 rounds. Sadly for Mano however his reign was a short one as his first defense saw him being stopped by Toshikazu Suzuki, meaning his title win was sandwiched between losses to Suzuki in a rather odd looking end to his career. Bonus fact - When Hinata Maruta won the Japanese Featherweight title in February 2021 he became the first fighter from the Morioka gym to win a Japanese title since Mano more than 27 years earlier! It's fair to say that when it comes to Japanese boxing a lot of focus is on what happens in Tokyo, and then what happens in Osaka. Those two markets dominate the Japanese boxing scene and everything else is secondary. As a result there are a lot of fighters from Central Japan who don't get talked about too much. One such fighter is former WBA Super Flyweight champion Satoshi Iida (25-2-1, 11), who's face is among the most seen by fans who follow Japanese boxing, even if he is rarely talked about.
Iiida fought from 1991 to 1998, squeezing 28 fights into his career, that lasted just shy of 8 years. During that time he wonRookie honours, national honours and the WBA world title. He was also involved in 6 world tittle fights, and beat the likes of Rolando Bohol, Yokthai Sithoar, Hiroki Ioka and Julio Gamboa. Today we're going to try and share some more facts about Iida as we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Satoshi Iida 1-It's reported that Iida began boxing when he was at the Gifu Kyoritsu University. Rather notably he appears to be the only famous boxer to have gone there, though there are other Japanese sporting successes from the University, including rising baseball pitcher Kaito Yoza of the Saitama Seibu Lions. 2-Before turning professional Iida had received guidance with his career from Jiro Watanabe and Katsuo Tokashiki, as part of a TV show. What makes this even more interesting as a fact is the TV show in question essentially had it's title translated to "TV uplifting of genius, Takeshi!" and featured none other than Takeshi Kitano in a major role. That's the same Takeshi Kitano, or Beat Takeshi as he's sometimes more well known, that was also the Takeshi in "Takeshi's Castle". 3-Within a year of his debut Iida had been crowned the All Japan Rookie of the year, beating Jiro Matsushima. Just over 2 years later Iida would claim the Japanese Super Flyweight title, again defeat Matsushima. 4-At the time of writing Iida is one of only two champions from the Midori Boxing Gym. The other was Hideki Todaka. Interestingly both men won the WBA Super Flyweight title with Todaka winning it from the man who had dethroned Iida. 5-Rather oddly for a world champion Iida's bouts rarely came on prime time Japanese TV, and were rarely shown through the country. Instead he was very much a local star in the Chukyo region, and, much like Kosei Tanaka in recent years, he was pushed heavily by a TV channel in the local area, CTV in Iida's case and CBC in Tanaka's case. Despite the lack of mainstream attention across Japan, he was a very successful "local" star, and is one of the few world champions from the Chukyo region. 6-Due to his good looks Iida was regarded as being an "Idol Boxer", a bit of a back handed compliment in which they were essentially saying he was too pretty for boxing, though credit to Iida he proved critics wrong by becoming a world champion and still maintained a pretty un-marked face. 7-Following his retirement from the ring Iida set up a training program for kids, and since then has actually gone further opening up 2 training facilities, one of which is the "Satoshi Iida Boxing Academy Box Fai" which is in Toyko. 8-Since 2008 Iida has released several books and a DVD. Interestingly the books focus on what appears to be training the eyes and vision, something he also focuses on at the aforementioned "Box Fai". 9-Iida shares his name with a character from Kamen Rider Hibiki, played by Tsutomu "Ben" Hura, who is well known for dubbing American actors for Japanese movie releases, including Bruce Willis and Joe Pesci. 10-Now a days Iida is often seen doing commentary for boxing events, adding his knowledge and personality to broadcasts in Japan. He also contributes to Japanese magazine "Boxing Beat". Given his TV work, his face really is seen more than that of many active fighters, at least regards to televised boxing events. Bonus fact: Iida's career had some strange little details in regards to dates. One of those was that he fought 6 times April 29th, which is a national holiday by the name of "Shōwa Day". The only other date where he fought more than once was December 23rd, fighting twice on that date, which coincided with the "The Emperor's Birthday" at the time, another national holiday.. He also never fought in May or June and only fought once in February, August and October. This means 8 fights came on two specific dates, whilst 5 months combined only had 3 fights! |
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