When we talk about legendary Korean fighters one man who often gets over-looked is Soo Hwan Hong (41-5-4, 14). He was the first Korean world champion to win a world title on the road, winning the WBA Bantamweight title in South Africa in 1974, and then repeated the acted again in Panama when he stopped Hector Carrasquilla for the WBA Super Bantamweight title. Although Hong wasn't the first Korean world champion, that was Ki Soo Kim, he was the second world champion from the country, a 3-time OPBF champion and a 2-weight world champion. He was also involved in a bout that still lives on in legend, with Hong pulling himself off the canvas 4 times to win his second world title. As fans of the gutsy Korean here we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know... Soo Hwan Hong! 1-Before becoming a world champion Hong had scored several wins of note. These included victories over Ushiwakamaru Harada, the brother of Fighting Harada, former world champion Berkrerk Chartvanchai 2-Hong's legendary bout with Hector Carrasquilla, in 1977, was shown live in Korea on the now defunct Tongyang Broadcasting Company (TBC). The channel, which was owned by the Samsung founder Lee Byung Chul, was merged with KBS in 1980. Notably the two men are now friends, and have met up several times since their bout. 3-We know most fighters fair better at home rather than away but Hong's world title record seems to suggest he did better away from home. He went 4-3 in world title fight, with a 1-2 record in world title fights in Korea and a 3-1 record in world title fights away from home. 4-In his final bout Hong fought to a draw with Dong Kyun Yum. The two men had a strange number of things in common. Both were 30 years old, both had been former world champions and both would retire after their draw. It is worth noting this was actually the second time the two men fought, with Hong beating Yum in their 1977 clash. 5-Hong, who was living in Alaska at the time, was arrested in 1984 for drug smuggling. He was arrested by the Anchorage Police and released on $2,000 bail. At this point he was working as a taxi driver and it appears that Hong was unfortunately transporting a known drug dealer around. Not only was he a taxi driver in the US but he also ended up washing dishes, and being embarrassed by the owner of the restaurant where he did the dishes. 6-Following his return to Korea, in 1992, Hong has remained a relevant figure South Korea and been involved in boxing. He was boxing commentator in the 1990's and featured regularly in broadcasts on Korean TV. He is also well regarded in his homeland and often receives news paper attention. 7-In 2007 Hong donated wigs to children suffering from Cancer at the Severance Children's Hospital. 8-In 2012 Hong became the Chairman of the Korean Boxing Commission (KBC). Prior to that he had also been the president of the Korea Boxing Association. 9-In the Pokémon games in South Korea Hitmonchan is named Hongsoomon, named after Soo Hwan Hong. This is similar to the original Japanese name "Ebiwalar", named after Hiroyuki Ebihara, and the French name "Tygnon" names after Mike Tyson. 10-Hong is married to Ok Hee, a Korean singer, though the two have had a rocky relationship since the 1970's, with their relationship beginning in 1977 when Hwan was with another woman in a common-law relationship. They then split, but reunited in the 1990's due to their children. On the subject of children the two have a son and daughter together. Hong also has children with his ex wife.
1 Comment
When it comes to boxing in Hong Kong there's only ever been one fighter of real note and that was the all action, must watch, thrill a minute Super Flyweight warrior Res Tso (22-0, 13). Tso seemed set for a world title fight in 2017 before vanishing from the boxing world, until he resurfaced and announced he was going to pursue an Olympic medal. He seemed on the verge of something huge and gave it up, just when it seemed like he was about to get a career defining bout. Win or lose, Tso in a world title fight would have been massive news for the still under-developed Hong Kong boxing scene.
With his career now looking like it's over, and with Tso being one of the fighters requested for this series, here we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Rex Tso 1-Tso has admitted that he wasn't very good at school, but was a good at video games. 2-Boxing runs through Tso's veins. Prior to picking up the sport himself his father was a very talented fighter and was a multi-time national champion. In fact it was his father who gave him some basic training in the sport prior to Rex considering the sport as a potential career. 3-Talking about Rex's father he was also the trainer of Rex's future manager Jay Lau, of DEF Boxing. Lau would give Rex a job as an assistant coach, despite Rex having no experience coaching. That job would later give us the most successful partnership in Hong Kong boxing, with Lau promoting Tso through his professional career to a world rankings. 4-Despite being a boxer Tso has revealed he doesn't like violence! 5-Although he would become the "Wonder Kid" that wasn't actually the nickname some of those around him gave him originally. That was actually "Flat Tyre Rex", as he ran out of stamina quickly. That was due to the fact he was, admittedly, very lazy. Thankfully he buckled down, and would end up really changing that, and build an incredible level of fitness. 6-On January 2nd 2015 Tso got married to his long term girlfriend, Candy Wu. The two had a wedding reception in Mong Kok in March that year. 7-Also in 2015 Tso got a new trainer as he began working with former Filipino fighter Jake Verano. Although not a well known name Verano fought 39 professional bouts and went 20-16-3 (10) during his in-ring career, which saw him beat Roly Lunas, and face the likes of Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, Terdsak Kokietgym and Ricky Sismundo. 8-Although Tso failed to make it to the top of the sport, he was regarded as one of, if not the, most marketable Hong Kong athletes. This saw him working as the face of a number of companies in Hong Kong and featuring in numerous commercials. This ranged massively, but included Nike, Hauwei, INOX, Stanard Chatered, Hong Kong Broadband and Hong Kong International Airport. Interestingly the relationship with Hauwei saw Hauwei live streaming one of his fights on their Facebook page. 9-Talking about Tso being the face of something he also partnered with the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation to help promote HIV tests. This saw him featuring in a series of posters with the theme of "Love with Sextitude", with Tso's fame in his homeland being used to raise the profile of HIV tests and responsible sexual attitudes in Hong Kong. 10-In 2020 Tso told the press that he had been discriminated against in Jordan for a wearing a mask when he arrived to compete in the Asia-Oceania Olympic Qualifier event. It needs to be remembered the event had been moved from Wuhan, China to Amman, Jordan due to Coronavirus. During this series we have looked at some real legends of the sport, and we do the same today as we look at Yoshio Shirai, the first Japanese world champion and a man who acted as the hope of light in post war Japan. His career was one of the most remarkable, and his achievements really helped set Japan up to become the Asian boxing powerhouse it would later become.
With Shirai being such an amazing person in the history of the sport we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Yoshio Shirai, and hopefully help give Shirai and his career some extra attention. 1-According to various reports in Japan Shirai wanted to become a boxer after boxing with a kangaroo at the circus when he was a child. Certainly a different reason to many who became boxers! 2-Shirai was injured in the first world war, and as a result suffered from sciatica. Prior to being injured he had served in the Japanese navy, as a mechanic. This injury almost saw Shirai retiring from the sport, years before he would become a star. 3-For most successful part of his professional career Shirai was trained by American Alvin Robert Cahn, who had no previous boxing training experience and was instead an American scientist working in Japan who convinced Shirai not to retire. The work between the two would see Cahn in still a very scientific approach to boxing in Shirai. 4-Under Cahn's guidance Shirai would win both the Japanese Flyweight and Bantamweight titles, and would defend both belts, switching between the two weights before settling on the Flyweight division. 5-Shirai would become a world champion on May 19th 1952 by beating Filipino Dado Marino for the Flyweight title. What's not so well remembered is that this was actually the third meeting between the two men in less than a year. Marino had defeated Shirai in May 1951, taking a split decision in front of 35,000 fans, with Shirai avenging that defeat in December 1951, in Hawaii. Their rubber match would see Shirai winning the title, becoming the first Japanese world champion. The two would then meet 6 months later, with Shirai beating Marino in his first defense, to close the series 3-1. in 2010 the anniversary of this win was celebrated with a special "Boxing Day" event in Japan. 6-Shirai is the only Japanese world champion to have not officially belonged to a gym under the JBC gym system when he won the title. Instead he was training under Cahn, who essentially had an exclusive contract with him, before the JBC was even set up. He was exempt from the rules that followed, and no other world champion from Japan has managed to get a similar exemption. As a result he is listed by some as having been "free" or "Shirai gym", which didn't officially exist and was essentially used as a place holder. 7-Shirai's 1955 rematch with Pascaul Perez set a Japanese audience rating record, of 96.1% on NTV, a record that still stands to today. Yeah that number isn't a typo, the bout had almost all of the TV audience of Japan watching. This was acrually the third bout between the two men, who had fought twice in 1954. 8-In 1995 he was made the honorary chairman of the Shirai Gushiken Sports Gym, set up by Yoko Gushiken. His role at the gym was regarded as being minimal, and he was told to keep out of the boxing business after retiring by Cahn, who had described the sport as being a "Monkey business", essentially telling Shirai the business side of boxing was dodgy and to be avoided. 9-The Japan Professional Boxing Association list him as having a record of 44-8-2 (15) with 9 exhibitions. Notably different to Boxrec's record of 46-8-4 (18). The reality is that his record isn't fully known and other sources have him listed at 53-8-4 (22) or 50-9-4 (22), with 9 exhibitions. 10-When Shirai passed away, on December 26th 2003, there had been over 40 other Japanese fighters who had won world titles. Interestingly exactly 7 years after Shirai's death Koki Kameda would claimed the WBA "regular" Bantamweight title, becoming the first Japanese fighter to have claimed world titles in 3 weight classes It's a new year, but we continue to push forward with this series as we cover former WBA Bantamweight champion Takuya Muguruma. The all action Muguruma fought between 1981 and 1988, winning Japanese and WBA honours during a relatively short, but very exciting career. His most notable win was in 1987, against Azael Moran, and despite losing the title less than 2 months later he remained a top contender until his retirement, following a loss to Juan Jose Estrada.
Whilst not a big name, Muguruma is someone who deserves more attention, and with that in mind, here are 10 facts you probably didn't know... Takuya Muguruma 1-Prior to turning to boxing Muguruma played a different. He was in the rugby club at High School. He changed the sport he was participating in, and of course went on to have a successful career as a boxer. 2-As an amateur Muguruma fought just 3 times, and went 2-1, before turning professional. 3-Muguruma's debut, on April 9th 1981, came on a card headlined by a world title fight! Muguruma would stop Kenji Miyagi in the 2nd round of on a show that was headlined by Samuel Serrano avenging his loss to Yatsuyune Uehara, to reclaim the WBA Super Featherweight title 4-In February 1982 Muguruma won the All Japan rookie of the year at Featherweight, defeating Mitsuru Sugiya with a 6 round split decision. This win would also lead Muguruma to be crowned the MVP 5-Muguruma was dubbed the "Endless fighter". The reason for this is a little bit unclear. Some suggest it was due to his aggression and relentless pressure style whilst others suggest it was due to a link he had with a TV program called "Endless Night", which ran in the Kansai region from 1984 to 1990. 6-Muguruma's WBA Bantamweight title win, over Azael Moran, came just a day shy of the anniversary of Jiro Watanable losing the WBC Super Flyweight title, to Glberto Roman. On paper that might not sound too interesting, but Muguruma and Watanabe were both stablemates of the Osaka Teiken gym and in fact Muguruma had fought on the same card that Watanabe had lost his title on. 7-According to multiple Japanese reports one of the judges of Muguruma's draw with Wilfredo Vazquez, stated they "hate boxers with swollen faces", essentially using that as an excuse to score in Vazquez's favour. The judge in question was the hugely controversial Patricia Morse Jarman. The judge, some how, had the bout 117-112 to Vazquez to help deny Muguruma a chance to become a 2-time world champion. Since the poor score in that bout Jarman has built a reputation for some of the worst scorecards in the sport 8-In 2014 Muguruma was the recipient of a liver transplant from a younger sibling. He spoke about this in some detail in 2017 at an event in Osaka, where he opened up about the experience of thr transplant and his life afterwards. 9-After retiring from the ring Muguruma got a job working for sports maker Mizuno. 10-More recently Muguruma has become a trainer at the Osaka Teiken gym, and began working as a trainer for Juiki Tatsuyoshi in 2018. When we talk about true legends few rival Gabriel "Flash" Elorde. The Filipino great has left a last impact on the sport and his family have kept his name alive in boxing, with his grandchildren still being active fighters. The name "Flash Elorde" is one of the that every fight fan should be aware of, whether they follow the Asian scene or not. He was one of the early Super Featherweight greats and one of the most significant Asian fighters of all time.
Whilst Elorde is a legend there are lots that fans aren't aware regarding him, his career and his life. With that in mind here we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Flash Elorde 1-Elorde was part of a big family, being the youngest of 15 children 2-Elorde dropped out of school at a young age due to the financial issues of his family, who were extremely poor. 3-After making his professional debut in June 1951 Elorde fought at least once every year up to 1971 apart from 1968. Amazingly he managed to cram a staggering 11 bouts into his first 6 months as a professional and 21 bouts into the first 18 months as a professional 4-Although Elorde fought a staggering 118 professional bouts he only fought 88 unique opponents. He fought 22 opponents more than once, including Teruo Kosaka, who he fought 5 times, Shigeji Kaneko, who he fought 4 times, and Isao Ichihara, Tommy Romulo and Masashi Akiyama, who he fought 3 times each. 5-Not only was Elorde a world champion but he was also a 4-time OPBF title holder. He was a 2 weight OPBF champion, winning both the Bantamweight and Lightweight titles, he is also the only 3-time OPBF Lightweight champion and he was also the first 4-time OPBF champion! 6-Whilst we've had a host of Filipino southpaw world champions in recent years, notably Manny Pacquiao, it's worth noting that Flash Elorde was the first. He was the country's 6th world champion, but their first southpaw to reach the top of the sport. Also with 11 defenses of the lineal Super Featherweight crown he had more defenses than anyone else. His 7 defenses of the physical WBC and WBA Super Featherweight title was a Filipino record until Donnie Neites set 9 defenses with the WBO Light Flyweight title, the WBO wasn't even formed until after Elorde passed away! 7-Elorde held, and defended, the OPBF Lightweight title at the same time as holding the WBA and WBC Super Featherweight titles. 8-Rather oddly Elorde lost both the OPBF Lightweight and the unified Super Featherweight titles to the same man, Yoshiaki Numata. He did that in excessive June's. He lost the OPBF, then known as OBF, title in June 1966 and the WBA and WBC world titles to Numata in June 1967. 9-Elorde was featured in a number of adverts, notably for San Miguel Beer. 10-Elorde was a chain smoker and sadly paid the price, dying of lung cancer in 1985 at the age of 49, just months short of his 50th birthday It's amazing to see how successful the Ohashi Gym have become in recent years, but it's hard to believe that they've not really been on the map for all that long, and aren't one of the more historical gyms. One of their first stars was Katsushige Kawashima. Although only really known in the west for his short reign as the WBC Super Flyweight champion, following an upset win over Masamori Tokuyama in their second bout, he's actually a really interesting fighter who proved doubters wrong and got to the top the hard way.
As Kawashima was only a short term champion, making only a couple of defenses, there is lots about him that has remained under the radar. With that in mind, let us bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Katsushige Kawashima 1-Kawashima went unbeaten in the amateurs, running up a less than extensive 1-0 (1) record in the unpaid ranks. 2-Unlike many fighters Kawashima wasn't actually inspired to fight after watching the sport on TV. Instead he was inspired after watching his friend fighting in 1995. His friend, an Ohashi gym fighter, got Kawashima to attend and it was there that he decided he wanted to box. 3-Surprisingly, given the fact he would later win a world title, Kawashima twice failed his pro-test. He was regarded as having no natural boxing ability, but being a genuine hard worker. 4-Kawashima's first loss as a professional came in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final in 1997. The man that beat him, Hitoshi Nakano, would later go on to win the OPBF and Japanese Flyweight titles! 5-In terms of nicknames Kawashima's most common one was "Last Samurai", though he was also dubbed "Lucky Man" 6-Kawashima's 1999 win over Napa Kiatwanchai saw him following his promoter, Hideyuki Ohashi, in beating the former Thai world champion. 7-When Kawashima won the WBC Super Flyweight title in 2004, stopping Masamori Tokuyama, he became only the second Japanese fighter to win a world title, whilst being managed by a former Japanese world champion, Hideyuki Ohashi. For those who are curious, the first was Keitaro Hoshino, who was managed by Susumu Hanagata. 8-The win over Tokuyama not only netted Kawashima the WBC Super Flyweight title but also saw him claiming the 2004 Best fighter award at the Japanese Boxing Awards and the Hochi Sports award for Boxing for that same year. 9-Kawashima fought with the initials "ST" sewn on his trunks after the death of a 17 year old Ohashi Gym trainee, from the 2000 Naka-Meguro derailment. 10-Since retiring from boxing Kawashima and his wife have run a jewellery business. The business sells original rings, not boxing ones, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, bangles and earrings, among other things. For those interested in the items they sell, the website can be found here https://ring-kawashima.com/ Although not well known in the west Japanese fighter Hiroshi Kawashima is regarded by many in Japan as one of the countries most skilled fighters, ever. The former WBC Super Flyweight champion ran up 6 defenses of the world title, that he took from Jose Luis Bueno in 1994, and held it for close to 3 years, losing it in February 1997. He rebuilt from a faltering start, that saw him suffer 2 stoppage losses in his first 6 bouts and begin 4-2-1 (4) and become one of the faces of Japanese boxing in the 1990's.
Whether you're a fan of the Super Flyweight division, and know something about Kawashima, or not, we are going to try and bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Hiroshi Kawashima 1-Kawashima's father ran a barber shop. 2-As a boxer Kawashima was a converted southpaw, meaning he was a right handed southpaw. 3-As an amateur Kawashima went 27-3 (15), he also beat both Puma Toguchi and Katsuya Onizuka in the amateurs. 4-In 1985 Kawashima's brother, Shinobu Kawashima, challenged for the IBF Flyweight title, losing to Soon Chun Kwon. Interestingly Shinobu also lost in a bout for an IBF Japan title in October 1985, losing to Satoshi Shingaki. 5-Kawashima was the fifth, and final, fighter to win a world title out of the Yonekura Gym, run by Kenji Yonekura. He followed Kuniaki Shibata, Guts Ishimatsu, Shigeo Nakajima and Hideyuki Ohashi. Interestingly he originally had a style similar to that of Hideyuki Ohashi, before developing to be more of a pure outside fighter due to his poor punch resistence. 6-Kawashima was a multi-time Japanese boxing award winner. He was the KO Award winner in 1993, a 2-time skill award winner, in 1994 and 1995, and the Best Fighter award winner in 1996. He was also a 2-time Hochi Professional Sports Award winner, in 1995 and 1996, for boxing. 7-Following his loss to Gerry Penalosa in 1997 Kawashima retired citing issues with his sight. 8-Penalosa regarded Kawashima the most skilled fighter he had faced and described him as a "complete fighter" in a piece where he spoke with Anson Wainwright for Ring, in a "Best I Faced" article. 9-Kawashima was dubbed "Untouchable" in Japan due to his defensive ability. That nickname continues with the shows he promotes, which are "Untouchable Fight". Interestingly Kawashima has also released a DVD, that can be purchased on Amazon.jp, called "Hiroshi Kawashima Boxing Defense Master ", showing off the defensive skills of the former world champion. 10-Earlier we mentioned that Kawashima had beaten Puma Toguchi in the amateurs but their careers crossed quite a few other times. They actually debuted on the same card, in August 1988 and fought each other in December that year, with Toguchi avenging his loss to Kawashima in the amateurs. Their bout in 1988 was the East Japan Rookie of the Year final, which Toguchi won in 6 rounds. The two also shared a card in July 1989, where Kawashima suffered his second professional loss. So, interestingly, both of Kawashima early losses came on cards shard with Toguchi! Extra Fact - Kawashima lost the WBC Super Flyweight title on February 2nd 1997 to Gerry Penalosa, in what would be Kawashima's final bout. On that same show was the unrelated Katsushige Kawashima, who was making his debut. Katsushige Kawashima would later go on to win the same title Hiroshi Kawashima lost to Penalosa! What makes this event stranger is that Katsushige Kawashima was managed by Hiroshi Kawahima's former gym mate Hideyuki Ohashi, becoming Ohashi's first world champion. One of the most requested fighters for this series has been Thai great Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. The Thai great is a legitimate modern day legend and his control of the WBC Flyweight title at the turn of the 21st century is something we doubt we'll see again any time soon.
Sadly away from boxing it's hard to find much about many Thai's, like Wonjongkam, though given the requests we have tried to come up with some interesting details about the Thai great as we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about...Pongsaklek Wonjongkam 1-Wonjongkam's parents owned a garage, and he actually worked there occasionally as a child. 2-Prior to turning his hand to boxing Wonjongkam had fought in Muay Thai. From his Muay Thai career he reportedly ran up a 28-13-1 record, though proved to be a better puncher and promoters noted his punching power, and recommended that he should try boxing. 3-Between December 1994 and July 2007 Wonjongkam lost only 2 of his first 67 fights, as he compiled an excellent 65-2 (33) record. Both of those losses came to Filipino Jerry Pahayahay, who became the first man to beat Wonjongkam, in 1995, and the first to stop him, in 1996. Interestingly a third meeting, in 1998, saw Wonjongkam finally notch a win over Pahayahay. 4-Wonjongkam was the 30th Thai to win a world a world title, doing so when he beat Malcolm Tunacao in 2001. 5- Wonjongkam still holds the record for the shortest world title bout in the division's history, a 34 second win over Daisuke Naito. Interestingly that was the first time the title had been defended inside a round, with the 3 previous opening round victories all seeing the title change hands....including Wonjongkam's own title win over Malcolm Tunacao. As an aside Interestingly Wonjongkam's technical draw with Hirofumi Mukai, at 47 seconds, was the second time the WBC Flyweight title had been defended in the opening round and is, at the time of writing, the only time a Japanese fighter has avoided a defeat in a world title bout in Thailand. 6--Wonjongkam's lengthy reign as the WBC Flyweight champion wasn't just notable for the length of reign, which was 17 defenses a divisional record, but also the men he beat. In his first reign defended the title against Luis Alberto Lazarte, Daisuke Naito, Gilberto Keb Baas and Tomobu Shimizu before reclaiming the title and beating Suriyan Sor Rungvisai, giving him wins over 5 men who would later win world titles! When we then then add in former or the reigning world champions, Malcolm Tunacao, Julio Cesar Miranda, Koki Kameda and Edgar Sosa we do spot just how impressive Wonjongkam's career was, going 10-2-1 (4) against men who held world titles. 7-Through his entire 98 pro fight career there was only 2 men Wonjongkam didn't manage to beat, and strangely he faced them in back to back fights. The first of those was Hirofumi Mukai, who he had a technical draw with in December 2011, and the second was Sonny Boy Jaro, who he lost to in March 2012. That means Jaro is the only man to hold a win over Wonjongkam and never suffer a loss to the Thai. 8-Wonjongkam's biggest purse came in 2010, when he faced Koki Kameda in Japan, The bout saw Wonjongkam, at the age of 32, roll back the clock and outpoint the 23 year old Kameda, who was 22-0 (14) at the time. He was paid around $300,000 for the fight. 9-Following his retirement Wonjongkam has worked as a trainer at Evolve MMA in Singapore, but is now back in Thailand and has helped train Knockout CP Freshmart, alongside Chatchai Sasakul. 10-In 2018 Wonjongkam returned for an exhibition-style bout with Koki Kameda at the Korakuen Hall. The bout was regarded as an unofficial 6 round Bantamweight clash by the JBC, and saw Kameda stopping Wonjongkam in the second round. Extra Fact 1 - As of 2015 Wonjongkam was living with his wife, and had no children Extra Fact 2 - Wonjongkam was regarded as the WBC Boxer of the Deace for the 00's Extra fact 3 - It was reported that Wonjongkam was paid almost ฿1000000 for his rematch bout with Koki Kameda When we go back through the annals of boxing history a lot of fighters are scarcely known. One of the many forgotten fighters from Japan is Shozo Saijo, a former Featherweight world champion and one of the most pivotal guys in the success of Japanese boxing.
Although a key figure, historically, Saijo's importance is rarely under-stood by fight fans in the West. We won't go into a full fledged profile of the former fighter, as we've already done one of those here Shozo Saijo, but here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Shozo Saijo. 1-Saijo began boxing at the age of 10, along with his brother. 2-In September 1968 Saijo became the first Japanese fighter to win a world title outside of Japan. He did so by beating Raul Rojas in a bout for the WBA Featherweight title, in what was actually the second bout between the two men in the space of just a few months following a win by Saijo in a non-title bout. This put him down as one of the few willing to prove himself in bouts outside of his homeland, and made it clear Japanese fighters could have success anywhere. 3-When he won the WBA Featherweight title he became the second world champion from the Kyoei gym, following in the footsteps of Hiroyuki Ebihara. This further helped the gym establish it's self in those early years, before going on to become one of the power players for the nation. 4-In Japan Saijo was known as the "Cinderella Boy" due to his good looks and unexpected story, similar to that of former Heavyweight champion James J Braddock who was dubbed the "Cinderella Man 5-In 1970 Saijo, the then WBA Featherweight champion, faced off with Hiroshi Kobayashi, the the WBA Super Featherweight champion, in the first ever bout between reigning Japanese world champions. Despite both being world champions the bout was actually a none-title bout, and ended in a narrow win for Kobayashi 6-Although not listed on IMDB Saijo has actually been featured in movies, including a 1974 movie (assumed to be Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken) with martial arts movie legend Sonny Chiba! 7-Following his boxing career Saijo entered the world of kick boxing, and amassed a very respectable 17-1-1 (13) record. 8-Saijo would pick up 4 of the major honours at the Japanese boxing awards, picking up his awards over a stretch of 3 years. He won the Best boxer award in 1968, the Skill award in 1969 and the Effort prize in 1970. He also won the Fight of the Year in 1968 for his bout with Flash Besande, which was the last out right winner not to have had a title on the line! 9-In 1968 Saijo won the inaugural Japan Professional Sports Award. As of the 2018 awards he was one of only 3 boxers to have won the award, along with the legendary pairing of Yoko Gushiken and Joichiro Tatsuyoshi 10-Now, in his 70's, Saijo is still involved in boxing and is the chairman of the Nakahama Boxing Gym Boxing in Japan has become an international thing in recent years, and when a top Japanese fighter is in action the entire boxing world takes note, as we saw with the WBSS Bantamweight final a year ago. Back in an era of imperial Japan however things were very, very different. The one massive star of the era was Tsuneo Horiguchi, also known as Piston Horiguchi. Whilst we don't expect many fans to be too aware of "Piston Horiguchi" he's a really interesting fighter, one that we won't really be able to do full credit to in this series. Despite that we'll try to teach you something new about Horiguchi with the latest in this series, with 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Piston Horiguchi 1-Horiguchi was the son of a police chief 2-Horiguchi was managed by Yujiro Watanabe, the man who is dubbed the "father of boxing" in Japan. Although Watanabe isn't too well known by fight fans now a days his influence in Japan early on is huge, and he set up the first Japanese boxing, the Nippon Kento Club in 1921. 3-Horiguchi wasn't just managed by a legend, in Watanabe, but he was also trained by a Japanese boxing legend, in the form of Fuji Okamoto, who would later become the president of the Japanese Professional Boxing Association. Although Okamoto's full record isn't known he is regarded as one of the early Japanese champions, and his career pre-dates the Japanese boxing commission. 4-In 1935 Horiguchi played himself in a Japanese movie called "King of the Ring", 5-Horiguchi is reported to be a former Japanese and Oriental Featherweight champion and former Japanese Middleweight champion. It should be noted that these titles pre-date the JBC and OPBF. 6-The May 28th 1941 bout between Horiguchi and Takeshi Sasazaki was dubbed "Fight of the Century" in Japan. Althoygh the venue isn't listed on boxrec we have been informed that it was at the Ryogoku Kokugikan. 7-With over 170 bouts to his name, including at least 138 wins and 82 KO's Horiguchi holds a number of Japanese national records that are not likely to ever be beaten. It's worth noting that there are differing reports on his career record, but the minimum numbers are 176 bouts, 138 wins and 82 KO's, with others reporting he had 183 bouts, 142 wins and 87 KO's. It's worth noting that his official record, as per the gym he set up, is 138-24-14 (82), different to the Boxrec record. 8-Horiguchi passed away in October 1950 at the age of just 36. He died after being hit by a train close to Chigasaki. There are mixed reports as to what he was doing on the train line, though the two main lines of thought are that he was either drunk or suicidal. 9-On Horiguchi's grave, in Chigasaki City, there is an inscription that translates as "Fighting is my Life" 10-The gym that was set up by Horiguchi, the P-Horiguchi Gym, is now run by Horiguchi's grandson. Prior to it's current chairman it had been run by Piston's son, meaning it is now been in the family for 3 generations. Extra Fact 1 - Horiguchi met Babe Ruth, and the two had their picture taken together, which we've included. Extra Fact 2 - Horiguchi's career really was intense. He fit his whole 170+ fight caerer into 17 years, which included 0 fights in 1945 and just 2 bouts in 1944. Amazingly he in 1946 he fought 20 bouts, a Japanese record! (Image courtesy of p-horiguchi.co.jp) |
Thinking Out East
With this site being pretty successful so far we've decided to open up about our own views and start what could be considered effectively an editorial style opinion column dubbed "Thinking Out East" (T.O.E). Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|