​One of the modern day Japanese greats is Shinsuke Yamanaka, who had a fantastic career, going 27-2-2 (19) and running up an excellent 12 world title defenses. Dubbed "God's Left" due to the power in his straight left hand Yamanaka was never the most versatile of fighters, but he perfect playing to his strengths, and his 1-2 was genuine dynamite.
 
During his great career he would score notable wins over the likes of Vic Darchinyan, Romas Rojas, Malcolm Tunacao, Suriyan Por Chokchai, Anselmo Moreno and Liborio Solis though ended his career following controversial back to back losses to Luis Nery.
 
Unlike many fighters from Japan Yamanaka had a solid following among fight fans from the west, but there was still plenty of things we suspect didn't know about the heavy handed southpaw. 
 
With that in mind we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Shinsuke Yamanaka, in what is our final 10 facts you probably didn't know about... article for 2019! Don't worry however as we will be back in the new year with more of these!
 
1-When he was 14, and before really picking up the sport, Yamanaka wrote in his junior high school graduation book "WBC世界チャンピオンになる" (WBC sekai chanpion ni naru) which translates as "become a WBC World Champion".
 
2-Yamanaka began boxing as an orthodox fighter, though converted to southpaw under advice from his high school teacher Maekawa Takemoto. Sadly Mr Takemoto passed away in 2010, before Yamanaka managed to win the WBC Bantamweight title. Added to this is the fact he's not actually right handed, in fact he's somewhat ambidextrous and revealed he would write left handed, but use chopsticks and scissors right handed, and also played baseball right handed.
 
3-Prior to being caught by the boxing bug Yamanaka played baseball at junior high school. He decided to pursue boxing in 1997 when he watched Joichiro Tatsuyoshi's bout with Sirimongkol Singwancha.
 
4-As an amateur Yamanaka went 34-13 (10)
 
5-Following some poor results whilst boxing as an amateur at university Yamanaka considered walking away from the sport, and came very close to retiring, before the fire he had had for the sport in high school re-emerged. Thankfully for Japanese boxing, his decision to turn professional turned out to be a great one, and lead to one of the most remarkable careers of a Japanese fighter in recent years.
 
6-Through his entire career Yamanaka was a Bantamweight, and there was only 4 times in 31 bouts that he came in above the 118lbs limit, the most he ever weighed in at was 120¼lbs, for his 13th professional bout.
 
7-Although noted for his power, especially in his left hand, Yamanaka only scored 2 early wins in his first 8 bouts, going 6-0-2 (2) during that early stretch. In his following 23 bouts he scored 17 stoppages, going 21-0-2 (17) during that run including a 9 fight stoppage run.
 
8-When Yamanaka stopped Jose Nieves in the first round he caused NTV to change their plans of using social media to engage the fans. Originally they had planned to use twitter to increase fan interest, letting fans tweet who they thought had won each round...unfortunately the bout was over before the tweeting really began and before the opening round was even over.
 
9-With 12 defenses of the WBC Bantamweight title to his name he holds second place for most successive defenses of a world title by a Japanese male fighter. The male record is held by Yoko Gushiken, at 13, whilst Momo Koseki holds the record if you include female fighters, at 17.
 
10-In 2019, well after his professional retirement, Yamanaka became an Executive Advisor for Japanese company Angfa Ltd, which sells things like shampoo, health food and cosmetics.
 
Extra Fact - From 2011 to 2016 Yamanaka picked up at least 1 of the awards at the annual Japanese boxing awards. He won the skills award 3 times, the KO award 3 times, the MVP twice and the Fight of the Year during that run.

On December 23rd baby faced fighter Kenshiro Teraji (17-0, 10) notched his 7th defense of the WBC Light Flyweight title, stopping Randy Petalcorin in 4 rounds, following 4 knockdowns. With that win fresh in the memory we've decided to do an extra "Five for..." this week and look at some potential bouts we could see Kenshiro in in 2020. We already know that the Japanese world champion is wanting to not only fight 3 times next year, but also unify and fight overseas. With that in mind we've tried to find bouts that fulfil those criteria here.
 
1-Hiroto Kyoguchi (14-0, 9)
An obvious number #1 choice here is a bout between Kenshiro and fellow Japanese world champion Hiroto Kyoguchi, the current WBA "super" champion. This is a bout that both men spoke about more than a year ago, and it really is time the two sat down and tried to make it happen. It's known that the two men are friends, they get on, but they also have a rivalry from their days as amateurs and what better time than to face off this Spring? The loser certainly may see their shine vanish, along with their title and unbeaten record, but with both men being in their mid 20's their careers certainly wouldn't be over. Instead the winner would go into the rest of the year as a big star, and the loser, would remain in the mix and be hunting another major bout later in the year.
 
2-Elwin Soto (16-1, 11)
In 2019 Mexican puncher Elwin Soto became one of the sports break out fighters for the lower weights, and his two world title bouts both took place in the US, as he won and defended the WBO world title. His world title would see Kenshiro get the much desired unification bout, and with Soto's growing reputation Stateside he could also get his over-seas bout here. The fight would also have a serious sense of danger, with Soto being a monstrous puncher, meaning the Japanese fighter would have to be at his best, defensively, and this is likely to get the very best performance from Kenshiro. As for Soto this would be a huge fight, and allow him a chance to unify titles just a year after winning his first, from Angel Acosta.
 
3-Felix Alvarado (35-2, 30)
A bout that was arranged, and was supposed to take place earlier this month, was for Kenshiro to take on IBF champion Felix Alvarado in Yokohama, to unify the WBC and IBF titles. Sadly that bout fell through when Alvarado fell ill, and Petalcorin ended up becoming Kenshiro's December opponent as a result. Now as we head into 2020 the bout can be re-arranged, if and when Alvarado is fit and healthy again. On paper this is a mouth watering match up pitting one of the best pure boxers in the division, Kenshiro, against one of the most brutish punchers in the division. This is a brilliant clash of styles and would be a meeting of two legitimate world class talents. Being totally honest the fact this bout fell through originally was one of the biggest disappointments of the year, and fingers crossed this now gets made at some point in 2020.
 
4-Deejay Kriel (16-1-1, 8)
South African fighter Deejay Kriel has had a strange 2019, winning the IBF Minimumweight title early in the year before vacating and moving up before managing a single defense. He's now fought in the US and in Mexico, and it's unclear where his future lies going forward. Regardless of what he's got coming up it seems clear that he's now a Light Flyweight contender, and is a former world champion at Minimumweight, meaning he'd be a perfect possible opponent for Kenshiro, and give him a chance to shine to a new, South African, audience. Kriel doesn't appear to have much of a financial backing, so a good offer will lure him over to Japan
 
5-Jing Xiang (17-4-2, 3)
Another potential fight on the road could see Kenshiro head over to China to take on Chinese contender Jing Xiang, who has shown he's able to fight at either Minimumweight or Light Flyweight. The Chinese boxing scene has been growing notably over the last few years and Xiang is one of the nation's biggest hopes, with wins over former world champions like Merlito Sabillo and Kompayak Porpramook in recent years. If Kenshiro wants to get out of Japan, then China is a decent option, and Xiang is an excellent fighter to look good against. We like this bout a lot and although it would be seen as a "safe" fight for Kenshiro it would also be bout between two excellent boxers. ​

With the recent news that Kyoei would be shutting its doors as a professional boxing gym, at least temporarily, there seemed no better time than feature the legendary gym in the latest of our "Did you know" features 
 
1-The gym was founded by former fighter Masaki Kanehira, the father of recent chairman Keiichiro Kanehira. As a fighter Masaki Kanehira ran up a record of 16-19-3 (1) during a career that ran from 1954 to 1959. Despite fighting almost 40 times there wasn't really anyone notable that he faced
 
2-The gym was one of the early success stories of Japanese, along with other highly established gyms like Teiken, Misako, Yonekura and Kadoebi. For years the main rivalry of gyms in Japan was Teiken Vs Kyoei, with the two being the biggest and strongest, by far. Sadly though since the death of Masaki Kanehira in 1999 Kyoei did fall behind Teiken, quite badly. 
 
3-One of the gyms most notable "firsts" was promoting the first Japanese professional female fighter Masako Takatsuki, who fought way back in the 1970's. Takatsuki's career was a short one, and boxrec only list her as having 2 professional bouts. Japanse sources on the other hand suggest she had 11, going 8-2-1 (3).
 
4-The gym is an historically significant one for fans who have enjoyed the recent rise of fighters from former Soviet nations. In 1989 they signed a number of top amateurs from the former USSR, including Orzubek Nazarov and Yuri Arbachakov, who later went on to be among the most influential "Russian" fighters, laying down the ground work for the current rise of fighters from Russian, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
 
5-Something we intend to talk about in more details one day is "The Orange Incident", but it fits in nicely here. "The Orange Incident", also known as "the poison orange incident", was a massive controversy in the early 1980's when Masaki Kanehira, the then gym chairman, was accused of mixing drugs into orange juice used by Yoko Gushiken and Katsuo Tokashiki. It's unclear what they were poisoned with, though the talk is that it could been a muscle relaxant or a laxative. The accusation was so serious that the JBC stripped Mr Kanehira's licenses and Gushiken's retirement ceremony, which was to take place in 1982, was canceled.
 
6-The Kyoei gym had arguably the greatest North Korean professional boxer ever fighting for them back in the 1990's. Thanks to Mr Kanehira's relationship with professional wrestler, become promoter, become politician, Antonio Inoki the gym managed to sign 1992 Olympic gold medal winner Choi Su Chol. The North Korean isn't too well remembered now but between 1996 and 1999 he went 3-0 (3) as a professional and scored a very notable win over Samuel Duran. Sadly though his career never managed to reach the heights it could have, and he remains one of boxing's many enigma's.
 
7-The gym has had 12 world champions, and one interim world champion. Those world champions are Hiroyuki Ebihara, Shozo Saijo, Yoko Gushiken, Yasutsune Uehara, Katsuo Tokashiki, Katsuya Onizuka, Yuri Arbachakov, Orzubek Nazarov, Osamu Sato, Koki Kaneda, Takefumi Sakata and Yota Sato. They also lead Tomoki Kameda to a reign as the WBC "interim" Super Bantamweight champion.
 
8-Among Kyoei's former fighters are Akira Jo (aka Joe Yamanaka), who would go on to have an excellent career as a musician and be well remembered for his charity work, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, who was dubbed "Santa Tokyo" whilst fighting in Japan, and voice actor Atsushi Imaruoka, who was in Super Street Fighter IV, Overwatch and several Way of the Samurai games, among other work.

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 Kazuto Ioka to Choi Tseveenpurev.
 
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-Well known by modern day boxing fans as a multi-weight world champion and one of the best Japanese fighters of the current generation Kazuto Ioka isn't actually the first member of his family to be a boxing star. Whilst his father Kazunori Ioka, failed to leave a big mark in the pro ranks his uncle Hiroki Ioka, was a fantastic fighter and a multi-weight world champion him.
 
2-As a youngster Hiroki Ioka was a great talent, and he would become the 6th world champion to be trained under the legendary Eddie Townsend, who is such a big part of Japanese boxing that he's even had an award named after him, the "Eddie Townsend Award". Townsend was one of the most revered and legendary trainers in Japan and his time as a trainer really changed Japanese boxing, and how the sport was taught in the country.
 
3-The "Eddie Townsend Award" is one of the major Japanese boxing awards, and has been around since 1990. It recognises the best trainer in Japan in a given year, and has seen a number of very notable winners. In 2014 the winner was Shingo Inoue, the father of Naoya Inoue.

When people talk about legendary Korean fighters names that often pop up are Jung Koo Chang, widely regarded as the greatest Korean fighter of all time, Ki Soo Kim, the first Korean world champion, Sung Kil Moon, a 2-weight world champion, and Myung Woo Yuh. 
 
For this weeks 10 facts you probably didn't know about... we look Myung Woo Yuh.
 
The obvious details about Yuh are that he was a 2-time WBA Light Flyweight champion who run ran up a total of 18 defenses, with his first reign consisting of 17 of them, and that he beat everyone he faced, avenging his sole loss to Hiroki Ioka to become a 2-time champion. There is however a lot that fans don't know about the all action "Sonagi"
 
1-He began boxing at the Han River Middle School, in his first year there. As an amateur he reportedly went 1-3, whilst fighting at 45KG's. Due to his style not fitting the amateurs very well he turned professional aged just 18.
 
2-Yuh won the Korean Rookie of the Year tournament at Flyweight when he beat HyoYoung Park in July 1982
 
3-Yuh had awful problems making weight through much of his career, needing to cut down from 60KG's (132.27lbs) to 49KG's (108lbs), to hit his fighting weight. 
 
4-Yuh's father was a bus driver and Yuh himself would use public transport whenever possible, not buying a car of his own until after his father retired. Once declining a free car from a manufacturer due to his dad's job
 
5-In 1988 Yuh was the highest paid boxer in Korea, out earning the likes of Park Jong-pal, Jung Koo Chang and Sung Kil Moon. During the year he earned a reported ₩380,000,000. In today's money that would be around ₩1,172,380,000, or $984,000.
 
6-Yuh married his wife in 1989, with over 300 guests. Included in the guests was the then WBC Super Middleweight champion In Chul Baek. 
 
7-Yuh had hoped to retire unbeaten after scoring 20 defenses of the WBA Light Flyweight title. Those hopes were dashed when he lost in his international debut, losing a close decision to Hiroki Ioka. He would avenge the loss but admit the loss upset him and ended one of his dreams.
 
8-After retiring from active boxing Yuh would set up Buffalo Gym and Buffalo Promotions in the hope of developing the next generation of Korean fighters. He has also run a restaurant in Korea.
 
9-In 2017 Yuh was scheduled to compete in an exhibition bout with fellow Korean boxing legend Jung Koo Chang. Sadly that was cancelled due to pressure from others about the venue of the bout, which would have been on islands that Japand and Korea dispute. Sadly nothing has been done to reschedule the bout for some other venue.
 
10-Talking about Chang, Yuh has revealed in interviews that he feels he would have lost had he faced the "Korean Hawk" and also revealed that reasons for the bout not taking place included issues with TV, as he was an MBC fighter and Chang was a KBS fighter, and that it was better to have 2 Korean champions than just 1.
 
Extra Fact 1 - Yuh was twice appointed to be the Secretary General of the KBC, in 2009 and in 2012, but failed to sit a full term in either due to the political wrangling inside the KBC.
 
Extra Fact 2 - Yuh was the 2nd Korean inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, following Jung Koo Chang.
 
Extra Fact 3 - The brilliant 1985 bout between Yuh and Oh Kong Son was a WBA world title eliminator.

Back on December 12th exciting Japanese Super Bantamweight Hiroaki Teshigawara (21-2-2, 14) recorded his third win of the OPBF Super Bantamweight title, stopping Shohei Kawashima in 5 rounds, notching his third stoppage win of the year. After that win he spoke about fighting for a world title in 2020. Whilst that's a possibility it's expected that for him to do that, he would have to wait until towards the end of the year, giving him time to squeeze in one, or two, fights before battling at world level.
 
With momentum behind him, and an exciting style, we expect to see a lot of Teshigawara next year, and we expect more and more fans to become aware of him as he moves towards a world title fight. With that in mind we bring you "Five For....Hiroaki Teshigawara"
 
1 - Yusaku Kuga (19-3-1, 13)
Before fighting for a world title we would like to see Teshigawara fight one of two domestic opponents, the most notable of which is current Japanese champion Yusaku Kuga. On New Year's Eve Kuga fights for the WBO Asia Pacific title, and the reality is that if Kuga wins that bout, as expected, a bout between Teshigawara and Kuga would essentially be fore unified regional title, with the two men each holding 1 of the 2 major regional belts. Stylistically this would be a thriller, and the winner would open up different routes to a world title fight. At the moment both men are ranked by just a single world title body, with Teshigawara being in the IBF rankings and Kuga in the WBC, so whilst both would be risking a title and a regional ranking, they would also stand to gain a lot with a win. Also it helps that style wise, this would be a special type of war.
 
2 - Isaac Dogboe (20-2, 14)
Whilst we would love to see Teshigawara in an action bout in Japan he'll likely be looking to claim a major scalp in 2020, and a recent world title challenger or world champion would be the type of fighter he'd want on his record. Having someone like that would legitimise him on the international stage and see fight fans around the globe looking into him, and wanting to know more about him. Given how Top Rank have began looking more and more towards Japan for fighters Teshigawara may well be on their radar, and a bout with former WBO champion Isaac Dogboe would be a great introduction to the US market. Dogboe looks to be a faded force after back to back beatings to Emanuel Navarrete, and getting him now would be the perfect time. Also a win over Dogboe by Teshigawara would be give Top Rank a new challenger for Navarrete later in the year.
 
3 - Ryoichi Tamura (13-5-1, 7)
The other Japanese domestic option for Teshigawara is former Japanese national champion, and current OPBF "silver" champion Ryoichi Tamura. Tamura isn't as well known as Kuga, and has lost twice to Kuga, but is the type of fighter who would make for a very fan friendly clash with almost anyone. Tamura is a high work rate pressure fighter who comes forward and throws, a lot. With Teshigawara showing more sides to his boxing in recent fights he should be able to out box Tamura, though their is also a chance he ends up engaging in a war with Tamura, to give the fans what they want. This could be a great fun fight to watch, a chance for some highlight footage before a potential charge to world level and it would also be a mandatory defense of the OPBF title. It's not as good as a Kuga bout in terms of reputation, but it's just as good in terms of fan friendly violence
 
4- Ronny Rios (32-3, 16)
We mentioned a Top Rank option for Teshigawara, with Dogboe, but a different US option would be working with Golden Boy Promotions, potentially angling for a WBC shot at Rey Vargas. A good option, if he wanted to take that route, would be through Ronny Rios. This is, in reality, a much tougher bout than the Dogboe one, with Rios in good form thanks to 3 wins in 2019 including a 6th round win over Deigo De La Hoya. It would really legitimise Teshigawara as someone who isn't just wanting to take a win over a name, but is wanting to take it over a name in form. Technically this would be a really fun fight, mixing the under-rated technical ability of both with their aggression and exciting mentalities. This would be a legit world title eliminator type of bout, and a great way for the winner to stamp their place on the sport as a top contender.
 
5- Cesar Juarez (25-7, 19)
Another possible, and potentially exciting, way to introduce Teshigawara to a Western audience would be a bout with Mexican Cesar Juarez. The 28 year old Juarez does have a fun style and has been in entertaining bouts, with his 2015 clash with Nonito Donaire being a bit of a forgotten classic. Juarez is a level below world class, and losses to Donaire, Dogboe and Ryosuke Iwasa have shown he's not quite part of the divisional elite, however wins against Albert Pagara, Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr and Cesar Seda, as well general performance, show him to be a fantastic gate keeper. Get past Juarez and you are typically world class. If Teshigawara gets past the Mexican his argument for a world title fight certainly strengthens.