From 1977 to 1982 Korean boxing had a thrilling all action hero in the form of Tae Shik Kim (17-3, 13), an aggressive, exciting, heavy handed ball of fury who oozed charisma and knew how to put on a show. He was stopped in his debut before going on an incredible run, winning 14 in a row scoring 11 T/KO's and securing the WBA Flyweight title, with a brilliant win over Luis Ibarra.
Sadly Kim's career at the top didn't last long. He lost the WBA Flyweight title in his second defense and he went 3-2 (2) in his final bout before being forced to retire whilst still in his mid 20's. Despite having a short career, with just 20 fights over a 5 year period, the exciting Kim was a huge star during his career and was the bright hope of Korean boxing at the time. Now a days however he is, sadly, a bit ill remembered with few fans talking about him and few remembering just how good he was. 1-As a child Kim was one of 7 children, having 4 brothers and 2 sisters. Also as a child he was rather prone to injuring himself. He reported damaged his head as a child, falling off something high, and also fractured his thumb, falling off a bike. 2-As a fighter Kim's nickname was "Stone Fist" 3-In 2007 Kim revealed that his first defense of the WBA Flyweight title, against Arnel Arrozal wasn't the bout he was supposed to have. He explained that, originally, was supposed to fight Peter Mathebula but that bout was scrapped about 15 days before hand when Mathebula was unable to get a visa. The South African fighter was in Hong Kong at the time and had to travel back with Arrozal replacing him on very short notice. 4--In that same 2007 interview Kim revealed that he had suffered a broken jawbone in round 4 of that bout with Arrozal, fighting 11 rounds with the injury. He later explained that the hospital staff said he wasn't human for enduring the pain. As for the visa issues of Mathebule, this was, in part, due to the sanctions against South Africa and the Apartheid regime. 5-In his second defense Kim did face Peter Mathebula, losing his title via controversial split decision. For that bout Kim got received 85 million Korean Won. According to Kim the bout had various issues with it, including being fought with 8oz gloves instead of 6oz gloves the 5 minutes it took to tally the scorecards. 6-Sadly after beating Roberto Ramirez in September 1982, by split decision, Kim required brain surgery to treat a subdural haematoma. This surgery forced him into retirement and ended his career when he was in his mid 20's. This injury affected him later in life, and he has admitted that he was treated differently in society afterwards, with people thinking he would be an idiot after the surgery. Thankfully however he made a full recovery from the sugery and was an eloquent individual in the years that followed his career ending injury. 7-In retirement Kim has done several things. These included running a meat restaurant, a coffee shop and a billiard's room. 8-In 2007 Kim opened a new boxing gym, 'Kim Tae-sik Boxing Gym'. opening it when he was in his 50's. 9-There is some confusion about Kim's date of birth. Boxrec have it at July 4th 1957 whilst Korean sources state it was July 4th 1957. 10-Kim got married when he was 37 to a much younger woman who didn't know him from his boxing career. He has stated that she was in the first year of elementary school when he was the world champion. Extra fact - According to multiple Korean sources he was ducked by Yoko Gushiken, who was happy to fight any other Korean fighter at the time, but not Kim. It should be noted however that Kim rarely fought at Light Flyweight and won not just the WBA Flyweight but also the Korean Rookie of the Year at Flyweight, even if he was just over the Light Flyweight limit at the time.
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Fighters are rarely described as "cute" but one fighter who did fit that description was Japanese Light Flyweight Ryoichi Taguchi (27-4-2, 12), who was often described as "cute" by the Japanese press during his career. That description could sound demeaning but the talented Japanese fighter managed to have a solid career between 2006 and 2019.
During his long and successful career Taguchi won Rookie of the Year, the Japanese Light Flyweight title and unified the WBA and IBF Light Flyweight world titles. He also faced a genuine who's who of the lower weights, sharing the ring with the likes of Tetsuya Hisada, Yu Kimura, Masayuki Kuroda, Naoya Inoue, Florante Condes, Alberto Rossel, Ryo Miyazaki, Carlos Canizales, Milan Melindo, Hekkie Budler and Kosei Tanaka. Although we suspect everyone has seen something of Taguchi's career, we also know fans probably don't know much about him, as he was generally quite a private person. With that in mind let us share 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Ryoichi Taguchi! 1-As a child Taguchi was bullied, and in fact it was the bullying that lead him to boxing, which he started doing when he was junior high school. He reportedly began boxing at the Ota Ward Gymnasium, before heading to the Yokohama Hikari Gym and then finally settling at the Watanabe Gym, where he joined after graduating High school. It was, of course, the Watanabe Gym that guided his entire professional career. 2-On the subject of Taguchi's early boxing days he only fought in 2 amateur bouts, tough he did manage to go unbeaten as an amateur, running up a reported 2-0 (2) record. 3-Taguchi's first trainer at the Watanabe Gym was was Korean fighter Hong Dong Sik, who came runner up in the World Junior Championships. Sik spotted Taguchi shadow boxing on his second day at the gym and quickly took a liking to the youngster. Later in his career Taguchi would be trained by Yuta Ishihara 4-It's well known that Taguchi faced off with Naoya Inoue, with Taguchi losing the Japanese Light Flyweight title to Inoue in 2013. Interestingly this wasn't the first time the men shared the ring. In fact they had done so in 2012, before Inoue had made his professional debut, as part of a spar. Originally the plan had been for their sparring session to last 4 rounds, but it was curtailed a round early when it was clear Inoue was too good for Taguchi. Footage of this spar has been posted online since it took place, and it was clear that there was a huge gulf in class between the two men. 5-Although Taguchi wasn't dropped by Inoue in their bout he was put down just two fights later, with former IBF Minimumweight champion Florante Condes dropping Taguchi in the second round of their 8 round clash in 2014. In fact Taguchi is the only fighter, through Inoue's first 20 bouts, to have not been either dropped or stopped by the "Monster". 6-Taguchi used to enter the ring to a song called "ART OF LIFE" by KAT-TUN, partly thanks to his friendship with Tatsuya Ueda. 7-On December 10th 2019 Taguchi took part in his retirement ceremony at Korakuen Hall. As part of that ceremony he sparred with former stablemate Takahashi Uchiyama, and was left in agony towards the end of the session as Uchiyama caught him with a nasty body shot. A sponsor for the show as said to have offered Taguchi a financial bonus if he could knockout Uchiyama, though it was Taguchi who was left close to going down. 8-On the subject of Takashi Uchiyama he and Taguchi were described as being like brothers, and Uchiyama was one of Taguchi's favourites fighters, along with fellow Light Flyweight champion Michael Carbajal. 9-One final fact based on Taguchi's relationship is the fact that Taguchi now works at Uchiyama's gym, the KOD Lab in Tokyo. The gym is one of two that Uchiyama owns, with the other being the KOD Studio in Kasukabe which employees Hisashi Amagasa among others. 10-Taguchi was classmates in junior high school with Saori Fujisaki, the piano player from Japanese band SEKAI NO OWARI. Between 1995 and 2004 Japanese fans saw the popular Osamu Sato (27-3-3, 16) make a name for himself fighting at Super Bantamweight and Featherweight. He was fight out of the Kyoei Gym and managed to become one of their stars at the tune of the millennium.
Outside of Japan Sato's name isn't a huge one, but during his pomp he was a must watch fighter with numerous exciting bouts and a really fan friendly style. During his 33 fight career he won the OPBF Super Bantamweight title and the WBA Super Bantamweight title. He also clashed with several notable names, including Willie Jorin, Yoddamrong Sithyodthong, Salim Medjkoune, Yokthai Sithoar and Chris John. Rather than going through Sato's career and achievements today we are here to give you some facts and information on Sato, as bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Osamu Sato 1-Whilst in high school Sato was close friends with Akihiko Nago, who would himself become a professional boxer. Nago was best known for coming up short in 2 world title bouts and for winning the Japanese Super Flyweight title during his 40 bout career. 2-As an amateur Sato went 15-6 (4), not the most amazing of records, though he was said to have won a Kinki High School tournament at Flyweight. 3-In various interviews Sato has revealed that the fighter he admired the most was Katsuya Onizuka. Interestingly both men fought at the Kyoei gym, though Onizuka had retired by the time Sato was a fully fledged member, and it wasn't until quite deep into Sato's career that he really got to know Onizuka, who was working for TBS as a commentator at the time. Rather notably the world title Sato won, the WBA Super Bantamweight title, was also the one that Onizuka had won in 1992 and held until losing it in 1994. The two men would later do commentary together, covering a Koki Kameda fight together. 4-As a professional boxer Sato fought with the nickname of "Hulk" 5-At the time of writing there is a bout of Sato's missing from his boxrec. The bout in question was a bout held in August 1999 against a Filipino fighter, which he won in 5 rounds. This bout is referenced by several Japanese sources and seems to be an odd one to be missing, as it came in the middle of his career. 6-Sato's professional debut came on a show headlined by the then WBC Flyweight champion Yuri Arbachakov, who defeated Chatchai Sasakul. Strangely he was one of 4 Japanese debutants on the show. At the time of his debut he was 18 years old. 7-Rather interestingly Sato's final professional win, a KO win over Dae Kyung Park, came just a day before Sato's 27th birthday! 8-In 2020 Sato was appointed an ambassador for EVERLAST in Japan. Also in 2020 he helped teach table tennis sensation Tomokazu Harimoto some boxing, with Harimoto saying he wanted to incorporate boxing movements into his table tennis performances. 9-Sato shares his name with a Japanese digital artist, photographer and composer. Interestingly the Sato who works in art is pretty well known for his video game work, which included Playstation game "LSD: Dream Emulator", which has a cult following and is widely regarded as one of the strangest Playstation games to ever be released. 10-Since retiring from the sport Sato has gone on to become an actor, and has featured in a number of roles, ranging from movies to dramas. As an actor he has gone by the stage name "Ren Hulk", a play on his old boxing nickname. Among his credits was a role in the 2020 film "Underdog", which is a boxing movie. When we talk about significant figures in Japanese boxing there are few that are as important in recent Japanese boxing history as former WBC Light Welterweight champion Tsuyoshi Hamada (21-2, 19), one of the very few Japanese fighters to win a world title at 140lbs. As a fighter he was a star, a real hit with fans and a man who has a massive following. His exciting, aggressive style, brutal power and short thrilling fights.
During a career that spanned from 1979 to 1987 he drew massive crowds and TV figures. Following his career in the ring he has remained a popular figure, working for TV and is often regarded as the public face of Teiken Promotions, appearing at press conference for the promotional powerhouse. Even now, in his 60's, he strikes an imposing figure and gives off the vibe of a man you do not ignore. Whilst perhaps not too well known in the west, he is regarded very, very highly by those in Japanese boxing, and with that in mind we thought he was an ideal fighter to feature in this weeks 10 facts you probably didn't know about... series! 1-Hamada was in a huge family, of 21 people living together. Whilst his family unity was huge, he did struggle to get attention and was the youngest of 7 of siblings! 2-Hamada began boxing when he was at elementary school, and was involved in sparring competitions under the watchful eye of his older brother Yuji. Even as a young kid his power was impressive and he is said to hit harder than school kids several years older than himself. 3-As an amateur Hamada racked up an impressive record of 37-6 (28), and won the inter-High School tournament whilst he was in his third year at the Okinawa Fisheries High School in Okinawa. 4-When Hamada turned professional he also got a job at a publishers called "KK Bestsellers", which were also a sponsor for the Teiken Gym. 5-During his 24 fight professional career Hamada fought just 98 professional rounds. This means his fights, on average, went just over 4 rounds. These included 19 rounds in his final 3 bouts, all at world level. Amazingly 16 of his bouts went 5 or fewer rounds, and only 3 of his bouts went beyond the start of round 9! 6-During his career Hamada picked up numerous awards at the Japanese boxing annual awards. They included the KO Award 3 times (1981, 1984 and 1985), the Skill Award twice (1984 and 1985), the Effort Award (1983), the Best Player Award (1986) and the Best Fight Award (1986 for his first bout with Rene Arrdondo). 7-After losing the WBC Light Welterweight title, in his second defense, to Rene Arredondo the plan was for a third bout between Hamada and Arredondo. Those plans were scrapped for two reasons. One of those was that Arredondo had lost the title, with the other reason being that Hamada was himself in bad health, with a knee injury that would have limited his ability to fight at 100%. 8-Hamada regularly used a Japanese cover to Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero", recorded by Yuki Katsuragi and Miki Asakura 9-Whilst it was known that Hamada never drank or smoked during his career, it's said that he still doesn't do either of those activities. His behaviour is said to be model behaviour and something that is, at least partially, expected to rub off on the youngsters coming through the ranks at the Teiken gym. 10-Following his retirement he has been a regular working on TV for both NTV, under their "World Premium Boxing" series, and WOWOW, for their "Excite Match" series of broadcasts. As a commentator he is regarded as being calm and accurate with what he says and being a very insightful analyst. Bonus fact- Hamada is currently the president of a health food company. When we talk about the most important people in boxing we tend to talk about the decision makers at the top of the sport, and not the ones a little bit further down the system who are making changes that will be felt by every fight fan. One man who falls in that category is former fighter turned trainer, turned promoter Ichitaro Ishii (21-3-1, 16). With that in mind we decided that this week would focus on bring you 10 facts about Ishii, who seems to be shaking up the sport and thinking outside of the box in ways that we don't really see from promoters. He's also doing so in a way that has helped rebuild Japanese boxing during the torrid times of Covid 19 pandemic.
Ishii is unlikely to be a name Western fans are familiar of, but his impact is something that Western fans who follow Japanese boxing will have been feeling in 2020, 2021 and the coming years. He's also someone we should all be looking at to see what future trends boxing could end up seeing from promoters, as he is genuinely a very forward thinking promoter. 1-Before he took to boxing Ishii was actually into baseball, and it was baseball that he played before taking up boxing in college. Surprisingly it was a PRIDE bout between Rickson Gracie and Nobuhiko Takada that attracted Ishii to combat sports. 2-Despite beginning to box in college Ishii didn't actually have any amateur experience. Instead he made his professional debut at the age of 19 in September 2001. For someone with out any amateur fights his success in the sport, which we'll get on to a little later on, was genuinely impressive. 3-We mentioned that Ishii was 19 when he debuted, it's worth noting that at the time he was a freshman at the prestigious Meiji University, a private university which is regarded as one of the most significant in Japan. Similar in many ways to the Ivy League in the US. Show that even back when he debuted he was an intelligent young man, and that intelligence is now proving vital in his work as a promoter. 4-Ishii's first loss came to Kazuyoshi Kumano in the 2002 East Japan Rookie of the Year, where Ishii lost a razor thin decision to Kumano at Super Featherweight. Although not a big name, or a major success, Kumano is known for later beating the then debuting Keita Obara in 2010. Following Ishii's loss to Kumano he moved up in weight and began to campaign as a Lightweight. 5-Rather notably Ishii was trained by former world champion Royal Kobayashi for his first 20 professional bouts. Sadly the relationship ended after Ishii travelled to train in Thailand and Japan, becoming one of the first Japanese fighters to travel to train. This saw him training at Rudy Hernandez's gym in LA and spending time training in Thailand, training at Veeraphol Sahaprom's gym. 6-In 2008 Ishii unified both the Japanese and OPBF Lightweight titles, beating Hiroshi Nakamori for the Japanese title in March and Randy Suico for the OPBF title. Sadly though his reign with both titles was short, and he had lost both by the time he retired in 2009. He decided to retire immediately after losing to Ryuji Migaki in April 2009. 7-Ishii's career ended when he was just 27, retiring from the ring and moving from an active in ring competitor to a trainer. He had notable success in a trainer role and was the chief trainer for Ryol Li Lee when he won the WBA Super Bantamweight title, in an upset win over Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym in 2010. He was also the trainer for Daiki Kaneko among others. 8-Ishii became the chairman of the Yokohama Hikari Gym following the death of Kazunori Miyakawa. In an interview with the fantastic Daisuke Sugiura, Ishii revealed the death of Mr Miyakawa was the biggest loss of his life. 9-Now-a-days Ishii is best known for being one of the men behind the A-Sign Boxing platform, along with Issei Nakaya of the Hachioji Nakaya gym. The A-Sign service has been one of the big success stories of recent years, and has been at the forefront of why Ishii is such a great promoter. The service has been a hit on YouTube, providing a mix of recorded fights, live streams, interviews, documentaries and chat series. It's through these videos that Ishii, and Nakaya, have helped great a huge following for his shows and helped build a following for fighters featured in his events, including the fast rising Jin Sasaki and the charming Takuya Yamaguchi. Despite being known as a YouTube service now, A-Sign launched as very different service, essentially selling a tape delay PPV service, though it has now evolved into a much, much more accessible and successful service, under crowd funding and sponsorship basis. 10-Going back to Ishii's interview with Daisuke Sugiura, which was done in 2020, Ishii revealed the most painful loss as a promoter was the 2015 bout between Ryo Akaho and Pungluang Sor Singyu. Ishii and Akaho had spent over a year preparing for the world title fight, spending time in the Philippines. Despite being a painful experience it was also regarded as a major learning experience and Ishii has now explained that he is much less emotional as a trainer. For those wanting to read the interviews referenced with Daisuke Sugiura it's a two part interview, and is well worth reading! Part 1: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/sugiuradaisuke/20200904-00196467/ Part 2: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/sugiuradaisuke/20200826-00194925/ When we talk about the best fighters to never win a world title one name that deserves a significant amount of attention is the tragic Kiyoshi Tanabe (21-0-1, 5) who looked on the verge of being a major success in the mid 1960's before his career ended due to an issue with his eyes. The talented fighter had began to adapt his style, moving from a purely outside fighter to that of a boxer puncher, he had battered a world champion in a non title fight and, at just 26 he was really coming in to his pomp.
Just as he was heading to a WBA Flyweight title bout Tanabe's career came to an end due to a detached retina in his right eye. This cost him a shot at Horacio Accavallo. Sadly the premature ending of his career has lead Tanabe to being both a curious case of "what if" as well as, sadly, a forgotten fighter, who sadly missed out on what should have been big career defining bouts. 1-Tanabe reportedly picked up the sport in 1958, while at High School in Aomori, and quickly became a dominant figure in Japanese boxing as an amateur. 2-Despite only beginning the sport in 1958 Tanabe managed to win an Olympic medal in 1960, taking a bronze medal. That was the first time a Japanese boxer had ever won an Olmypic medal. On route to that medal Tanabe beat Romanian fighter Mircea Dobrescu, who had picked up silver in 1956, as well as Nigerian fight Karimu Young and Irishman Adam McLean. 3-Staying with Tanabe's amateur career he twice beat 1964 Olympic gold medal winner Takao Sakurai, doing so when both men were amateur fighters in the early 1960's. When he ended his amateur career he had amassed an exceptional amateur record of 115-5 (30). 4-After graduating from University Tanabe would work for the Nikkan Sport newspaper. He left there about 6 months later to turn professional. Despite leaving the paper after only a short time there he has continued to have a good relationship with the paper, who had also covered his career before the Olympics. 5-During the mid 1960's Tanabe worked with famed American trainer Bobby Richard. Interestingly Richard left Tanabe's corner to train Ki Soo Kim, helping Kim to become the first world champion from Korea. 6-After Richard left Tananbe's side the Japanese fighter linked up with another well known American trainer, Eddie Townsend. Sadly Townsend didn't get to spend long with Tanabe, with Tanabe suffering his career ending eye injury within weeks of working with Townsend. In fact the two men only worked together for 20 days! 7-Interestingly Tanabe's injury opened up the door for a different Townsend fighter to get a title shot. Prior to his medical issue Tanabe had been training for a shot at world champion Horacio Accavallo. It was during the trianing camp for this bout that he suffered his career ending injury. Due to the injury Tanabe's shot was given to Hiroyuki Ebihara, who Townsend had also trained. 8-The respect between Tanabe and Townsend was incredible. Before he passed Townsend described Tanabe as the unluckiest fighter he ever trained, whilst Tanabe described his time with Townsend as the best, and that he couldn't express his gratitude to Townsend's teachings. 9-In 2020 Ikuo Beppu released a book focused on the relationship between Tanabe and Townsend, with a title that translates as "Boxing Bonds Spun by Kiyoshi Tanabe and Eddie". The softcover version of the book is 168 pages and retails for ¥1,760 (About £12-£13 at the time of writing). 10-Tanabe shared his name with a former Tennis player! The tennis playing Kiyoshi Tanabe, also known as "Kiyo", was 7 years younger than than the boxer and played as a professional through much of the 1970's. Sadly for the Tennis playing Tanabe his career wasn't a hugely successful one, despite playing in 4 David Cup's. His highest world ranking as a single was #174 in July 1974. His stand out result was a big upset win over Australia John Cooper in the 1974 Australian Open. When we discuss the greatest Japanese boxers of all time one man who seemingly gets over-looked, a lot, is Kuniaki Shibata (47-6-3, 25). The excellent former fighter fought from 1965 to 1977, carved out a brilliant career, won multiple world titles, was dubbed a genius but now, around 45 years after his last bout, is often over-looked. Unlike many top Japanese fighters he focused on skills, counter punching, and ring craft, as opposed to power, strength and incredibly toughness. He worked around his flaws, including a suspect chin, to have a tremendous career and be one of the earliest Japanese world champions.
Although often forgotten we can't ignore Shibata and today we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Kuniaki Shibata 1-Shibata was the 1965 All Japan Rookie of the Year winner at Super Bantamweight, beating Masachika Tokutome in the final. 2-Although the Yonekura gym is one of the most legendary in Japan, with several world champions coming from the gym before it closed it's doors in 2017, what's often forgotten is that Shibata was it's first world champion. Shibata was later followed by Guts Ishimatsu, Shigeo Nakajima, Hideyuki Ohashi and Hiroshi Kawashima. 3-Various stories from Japan state that whilst Shibata was seen as a brilliant talent, and a boxing genius he was also seen as a rather boring individual with the media preferring to focus on his Yonekura Gym stablemate Guts Ishimatsu, who was much more an out-of-the ring entertainer and much, much more charismatic. 4-Shibata was the 9th world champion from Japan. He was also the first 3-time world champion from the country and the second 2-division world champion, following the legendary Fighting Harada. 5-Rather amazingly Shibata was the Japanese fighter to win world titles outside of Japan. Doing so in 1970 when he upset the legendary Vicente Saldivar in Mexico. More impressively he is also the only Japanese fighter to achieve that feat twice, having also won the WBA Super Featherweight title in 1973 when he out-boxed Ben Villaflor in the US 6-During his in ring career Shibata was awarded annual awards on 5 different occasions. In 1967 he won the New Comer award, in 1970 he was awarded the Distinguished Service award, in 1973 and 1975 he won the Fighting Spirit award and in 1974 he won the Best Fighter award, 7On August 7th 1974 Shibata got married in LA, with the wedding later airing on Fuji TV's "Love Love Show". Around the time of the marriage Shibata was criticised in in the Japanese press, with women said to weaken boxers. His bout after getting married saw him defeat Ramiro Bolanos in October 1974, with Bolanos, from Ecuador, being promised a car and a house from then Ecuadorian President, Guillermo Rodríguez Lara, if he won. Sadly for Bolanos he was stopped by Shibata in the 15th round 8-Following Shibata's retirement he would go on to remain at the Yonekura gym as a trainer, passing on his ring skills and knowledge to the next generation of talent at the gym. 9-In 2020 Shibata was one of the fighters who took part in a Nikkan Sports series looking as fighters favourite knockouts. Shibata's choice for the series was Hiroyuki Ebihara's KO of Pong Kingpetch in 1963. Shibata would later ask Ebihara about the shot whilst the two played golf together, and Ebihara seemed to suggest that it was a shot that came from experience, rather than aiming for the KO. 10-Mexican fighter Jose Flores adopted the nickname "Shibata" due to Kuniaki Shibata. When we talk about Filipino boxing now a days the first name that springs to mind is Manny Pacquiao. Back in the 1980's and 1990's however the first name to spring to mind for many fans was the exciting Rolando Navarrete (56-15-3, 33), aka the "Bad Boy from Dadiangas".
The talented Super Featherweight fought between 1973 and 1991 and was in some of the most amazing battles ever. His contests with Cornelius Boza Edwards and Rafael Limon were legendary and his high rolling, fast living party boy life style made him a hit to be around. Despite being a great in the 1980's Navarrete's is now somewhat a forgotten figure in Filipino boxing history, with fans enamoured by the success of Pacquiao. We thought we'd try to shine a light on Navarrete here as we give you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Rolando Navarrete 1-Navarrete made his professional debut just 3 days after his 16th birthday 2-Interestingly Navarrete suffered his second professional loss on the under-card of the "Thrilla in Manilla" 3-Navarette's younger brother, Romy Navarrete, was also a fighter and ran up a 39-16-1 (9) record. Whilst not an amazing fighter he did score a notable win over 3-time world title challenger Seung Koo Lee, and held the OPBF Flyweight title in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Notably Romy sadly lost to his most notable foes, including Yul Woo Lee, Greg Richardson and Luisito Espinosa 4-In 1984 Navarrete was sentenced to 20 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually abusing a bar hostess in Hawaii. He only served a short sentence however due to a release on humanitarian grounds. Reports suggest that he was set up by his then manager who was unhappy about Navarrete's refusal to fight under an American flag. This wasn't his first, or final, run in with the law. In fact he was involved in street fights and petty crime years later. 5-Navarrete has been in a number of violent incidents outside of the ring where he was the victim. This included a 2008 stabbing, where he was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick, a 2005 incident where he was hit with a steel pip and a 2006 case where he was hit in the let with a shot gun. 6-Navarrete, along with Rolando Bohol, featured 1988 Filipino sports film "Kambal Na Kamao: Madugong Engkwentro", with both fighters getting starring roles. The movie is about two fighters. It's been negatively reviewed due to it's story telling, but the fighters were well regarded, which shouldn't be a shock given they had two world class boxers involved. 7-In 2009 Navarrete had his physical WBC Super Featherweight world title stolen, from his home. 8-Filipino MMA fighter Rolando Dy is the son of Navarrete. The two didn't have the best of relationships, and Rolando Dy was essentially brought up by his mother, Jennifer Dy-Subastil, due to Navarrete's wild life style. 9-As well as Rolando Dy Navarrete had another son, Rolando Navarrete Jr. Jr had a short lived boxing career himself, going 2-2-1 (2) between 2010 and 2013. Sadly his life was taken in 2019 in what appeared to be a targeted murder after Jr in September. 10-At one point after retiring it was reported that Navarrete had been making money by selling fish, earning about about 800 Filipino Pesos a day. There are very few Mongolian fighters who have managed to connect with fans around the world. One of the few who has is the enigmatic Choi Tseveenpurev (36-7-1, 24), who fought between 1996 and 2014. During that time he managed to really connect with British fans and become a fan favourite among the hardcore fans in the UK.
Although he never won a world title Tseveenpurev managed to knock on the door a few times and shared the ring with some notable names, including Veeraphol Sahaprom, Lehlo Ledwaba, Derry Matthews and Daud Yordan. He also moved up in weight, beginning his career at Bantamweight and moving all the way up Lightweight at one point. With that said, lets us bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Choi Tseveenpurev 1-Choi's family was nomadic, and he was brought up in the Mongolian mountains. 2-As a child Choi trained in boxing for about 18 months, before giving up the sport to go to college, and didn't have time to train in the sport any more. 3-After college Choi worked in a fire station, doing so in the early 1990's. He left the job, and told his colleagues he had got a new job. In fact he hadn't got anything lined up and left to chase his dreams of becoming an athlete. He was jobless for around 2 years after this decision. 4-Among the many inspirations for Choi to become a boxer was watching a Mike Tyson fight on Russian TV, and felt that he could use boxing to become well known and to show his power. 5-Although Choi was in his 20's when he began to really take the sport seriously he did manage to have a pretty notable amateur career. In the unpaid ranks he took home a Gold medal from 1994 Tammer Tournament in Finland, and a Bronze medal at the Seoul Box Cup in 1995. He also competed at the 1995 Asian Championships in Tashkent 6-Choi was a sparring partner for Lakva Sim, the first Mongolian to win a world title. 7-Choi has explained that his favourite opponent was Abdul Tebazalwa, a man he fought in 2007. It seemed like Choi saw a lot of familiarity with himself, with both men moving from relatively poor countries, Mongolia in Choi's case and Uganda for Tebazalwa, to Europe, with Choi living for years in England and Tebazalwa being based in Sweden. 8-During his 44 fight professional career Choi only fought once in Mongolia. He also fought in South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, China, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Singapore. 9-Rather interestingly Choi's only draw came in his very final bout, drawing with Hyun Sunwoo in South Korea. This bout was interesting for a few reasons. Not only was it his only draw but it also resulted in him having a 1-1-1 record in 6 round bouts that went to a decision and it took his career full circle, with his first and final bout coming in Korea. It was also his only scheduled 6 rounder not to take place in the UK, as the previous 8 hard! 10-Choi featured in a movie, called "Iron Monk". When we think about Japanese fighters we typically think about lower weight fighters, who make their name at Featherweight or below. What's rather notable however is that there have been several Japanese fighters winning world title at Light Middleweight. One of those is the often forgotten Tadashi Mihara (24-1, 15).
The hard hitting Mihara made his debut in 1978 and fought through 1985 whilst racking up a solid and notable professional career. Although not too well remembered in the west he managed to have success as an amateur and as a professional, even winning a world title in the US in 1981. The highlight of Mihara's career was obviously winning the WBA Light Middleweight title, defeating Rocky Fratto, though his reign was a short one, and he lost in his first defense, losing to Davey Moore. Despite how short his reign was he was a notable fighter and today we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Tadashi Mihara 1-Mihara was born in Misato, Gunma. That town no longer exists, and in 2006 it was merged into the city of Takasaki. When it was merged the town had about 20,000 people living there, and Mihara was one of the very few notable figures from the town. Other notable figures from Misato include painter Kaoru Yamaguchi, sumo wrestler Kotonishiki Katsuhiro and tennis player Zenzo Shimizu 2-Mihara had an amateur record of 28-10 (15) 3-Only 1 of Mihara's bouts was scheduled for less than 10 rounds, with that being his 6 round debut. He would go on to feature in 10 bouts scheduled for 10 rounds, 7 bouts scheduled for 12 rounds and 2 bouts scheduled for 15 rounds 4-Mihara managed to win national, regional and world titles during his career. Strangely however the final of the titles for him to win was the Japanese. His first title was the OPBF title, won in his 5th bout, the second was the WBA title which he won in his 15th bout, and then the Japanese title, which he won in his 18th bout. For those interested all 3 titles were at Light Middleweight. 5-Having mentioned that Mihara won an OPBF title in his 5th professional bout it should be noted that this was a then Japanese record and stood as the record for 35 years. The record would be tied by Eiji Kojima, Akira Yaegashi and Naoya Inoue, before Kosei Tanaka broke it in 2014, winning the OPBF Minimumweight title in his 4th bout. 6-In 1981 Miahara won the Japanese fighter of the Year. Interestingly he won this award after Yoko Gushiken had won the award for 5 years in a row, and was followed by Jiro Watanabe, who won it every year from 1982 to 1985. 7-Mihara married the daughter of the then Chairman of the Misako gym, though did later get divorced from her 8-Mihara was the third Japanese fighter to win a world title at 154lbs, following Koichi Wajima and Masashi Kudo. 9-When Mihara won the WBA Light Middleweight title in 1981 in the US, beating Rocky Fratto, few would have expected a lengthy break for a Japanese champion to be crowned on foreign soil. Amazingly however it would take more than 10 years for another Japanese fighter to win a world title away from home, with Akinobu Hiranaka achieving the feat in Mexico in 1992. Amazingly it would take more than 30 years from Mihara's title win for the next Japanese fighter to win a world title in the US, with that being Masayuki Ito, who won the WBO Super Featherweight title in 2018! 10-Following his retirement he became a trainer at the Misako Gym |
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
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