Over the last few years we've seen a growing number of fighters being put on the fast track to the top, and they've genuinely come from across the globe. We've had Japanese fighters like Naoya Inoue and Kosei Tanaka, Thai's like Knockout CP Freshmart, Ukrainians like Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk as well as Russian based fighter Dmitry Bivol. Whilst not all fast tracked fighters get the success they are looking for, with Lu Bin and Mark Anthony Barriga both coming up short recently, it's been an exciting period to see prospects raced to success.
 
As well as those who have had chances straight away we've also seen a number of fighters having to wait, though looking like they could be hot shotted straight into the title picture, the likes of Israil Madrimov seemed like they could compete best in the world straight away. Win or lose it's hard to imagine someone like Madrimov wouldn't at least be competitive with someone like Tony Harrison, and that's not us trying to be disrespectful to "Super Bad".
 
It got us thinking, who has fought for a world title on debut? And how have they done? And if we're being honest our research showed more fighters than expected had actually gotten a shot, with one notable success having done better than just fight for a title but also win it!
 
Surprisingly from 8 examples we found 5 were from Asia, with the other 3 coming from across America.

​The First
The most notable example, and the first we found, was US Heavyweight Pete Radamacher, who made his professional debut in 1957.
 
The then 28 year old Rademacher had won an Olympic gold medal in 1956 and had amassed a reported amateur record of 72-7. His route to an Olympic gold medal had seen him stop all 3 of his opponents, and do so in a combined 6 rounds before he headed to the professional ranks. On debut, on August 22nd 1957, he faced off with the then 32-1 Floyd Patterson, the Heavyweight champion of the world!
 
The bout was widely seen as a mismatch, though Rademacher did have success and dropped Patterson in the second round. Sadly however Rademacher was unable to build on that and Patterson roared back, dropping the challenger a total of 7 times before scoring a KO towards the end of round 6. 
 
Despite losing on debut Rademacher would go on to have a pretty good career, going 15-7-1 (8). Those numbers however don't do credit to what he did, with wins over LaMar Clark, a real fraud, George Chuvalo and Bobo Olson, whilst being matched insanely tough through his career. His losses came not only to Patterson but also Zora Folley, Brian London, Doug Jones, Archie Moore and Karl Mildenberger.
 
The Controversial Lovera
It would be 18 years until we had another debutant challenger, with Paraguayan Rafael Lovera fighting for the WBC Light Flyweight title against Luis Estaba on September 13 1975. 
 
The title had been stripped from Italian Franco Udella, who refused to fight Lovera. Udella had become the inaugural champion in April 1975, beating Valentin Martinez for the title. For some reason the WBC allowed Lovera to fight for the belt, though he was stopped in 4 rounds by Estaba. Estaba himself would go on to hold the belt until 1978, when he was stopped by Freddy Castillo, having had 11 defenses of the belt. Lovera would never return to the ring, retiring 0-1.
 
1984 see the IBF do a double
Interestingly 1984 saw two different debutant challengers, at least we think so. 
 
We say that because the first of those was Indonesian fighter Joko Arter, and it's impossible to be 100% about Indonesian records. What is known is that Arter was the second Indonesian to fight for a world title, following Thomas Americo, and didn't fair very well in what is thought to be his only professional bout.
 
The debuting Arter took on Korean fighter Min Keun Oh on March 4th 1984 in a bout for the newly created IBF Featherweight title, and he was stopped in 2 rounds by the Korean. We've not been able to find any other bouts featuring Arter afterwards, though we do know that Keun's reign was regarded as a very disappointing one, and he lost in his third defense.
 
Interestingly Joko's brother, Dobrak Arter, would go on to have significantly longer career, though his record, like that of Joko is pretty unclear, with reports being that he fought over 80 times, whilst Boxrec have only 23 of his bouts in their database.
 
Exactly 5 months after Arter lost we have the year's other debutant challenger, Filipino Joves De La Puz. The Filipino took on Japan's influential Satoshi Shingaki in a bout for the IBF Bantamweight title, in what was Shingaki's first defense, and came close to shocking the boxing world, losing a narrow split decision to Shingaki over 15 rounds.
 
The bout, which was held in Japan, really is an oddity in lots of ways, not just the debut challenge but it was also the first time a Japanese fighter had defended an IBF title on Japanese soil, under the auspices of the renegade IBF Japan outfit. Sadly it appears Puz, like many others on this list, never actually returned to the ring, and he needs to go down as a real "what could have been?" given that a close loss to Shingaki, over 15 rounds, shows there was something about him.
 
More IBF mess, this  time Minimumweight
We stay with the IBF and the IBF Japan for the next debutant title challenger, Masaharu Kawakami. On June 14th 1987 Kawakami fought Kyung Yung Lee in the inaugural IBF Miniumweight title bout, losing in 2 rounds to Lee. 
 
Unlike a number of fighters on this list Kawakami would actually go on to fight further bouts, losing by stoppage 6 months later to Romero Opriasa and then in 1990 to Joe Constantino. However their is a huge asterix to his name when it comes to this, for several reasons. Firstly the graphic on the screen for the bout suggests Kawakami has an 88% stoppage rate and secondly Kawakami had been scheduled to fight in a professional bout prior to face Lee, though that bout was turned into to an exhibition with details regarding the bout being very sketchy. Sadly we've not been able to find in depth details on that contest, but it certainly appears there was something very odd about Kawakami's entire career.
 
We stick with the IBF for the next debutant challenger, Domingus Siwalette, who fought for the IBF Minimumweight title against Ratanapol Sor Vorapin on September 26th 1993. Siwalette, like Joko Arter, was an Indonesian fighter so we're not totally sure on his professional record, though the suggestion is that this was his professional debut, with their being a struggle for qualified fighters at the weight at the time. 
 
Siwalette was stopped in the 4th round by the Thai world champion and began what was a disappointing career. Like Kawakami he did continue to fighter after his loss, and like Kawakami there is no record, at the time of writing, of him ever scoring a win. Instead Siwalette went 0-10 in his career, losing 3 of his 10 bouts by stoppage. That sounds amazingly bad, though his competition is actually pretty scary. Not only was he beat by Ratanapol, but also Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr, Pichitnoi Sithbanprachan and Muhammad Rachman. In just 10 recorded bouts he fought 4 fighters who would hold world titles!

So, May has finally ended and we're now in June. What a perfect time to look back on the fights we've had over the past 31 days.

The action kicked off almost immediately with an intriguing Japanese show on May 1st. The headline bout saw Ryota Murata (7-0, 5) score an impressive TKO against Brazilian fighter Douglas Damiao Ataide (13-2-1, 6) and in fairness to Murata it was the sort of finish that he needed after going the distance in back-to-back fights. There is still a lot of questions regarding how far Murata will go but at times he looked world class, especially with the way he finished of Ataide, who had never previously been stopped.

Although Murata's bout was, technically, top of the bill there was also a world title fight on the card as Takashi Miura (29-2-2, 22) took care of Australian Billy Dib (39-4-0-1, 23) with a very destructive stoppage. This was Miura's 4th defence of the WBC Super Featherweight title and he's now looking to break out his passport and fight in the US or Mexico in the hope of building his international fan base.

The day wasn't all good for Japanese fighters however as Takahiro Ao (27-4-1, 12) got stopped in a WBO Lightweight title bout by Raymundo Beltran (30-7-1, 18). Beltran, who had failed to make weight for the bout, looked significantly bigger than Ao and made light work of the under-sized Japanese fighter. Interestingly a story has since broke that Beltran has failed a drugs test and if that story is confirmed this bout will be changed to a No Contest.

Just a day later we saw the richest fight in history as Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38) and Floyd Mayweather Jr (48-0, 26) finally got it on. Sadly the bout failed to live up to the expectations of many and although the bout made an insane amount of money it really did little to advertise our great sport. Pacquiao, who lost the bout by unanimous decision, did himself no favours following the bout by citing an arm injury for his performance and numerous people have since filed court cases against the hugely popular Filipino.

On May 6th we had more title action with a Watanabe promoted triple header. The most impressive performance here saw WBA Super Featherweight “super” champion Takashi Uchiyama (23-0-1, 19) blast away Thai challenger Jomthong Chuwatana (9-1, 4) in just 2 rounds. Uchiyama looked sensational at times in one of his most impressive performances since winning the title more than 5 years ago. Although the Japanese fighter looked amazing he did later require surgery on his left elbow.

On the same show Uchiyama's stablemate Ryoichi Taguchi (22-2-1, 9) retained his WBA Light Flyweight title with an 8th round TKO of Thai veteran Kwanthai Sithmorseng (49-4-1, 26). Kwanthai brought the fight for the most part but was dropped numerous times by the champion who certainly his harder than his record indicates.

The third champion to defend their title on this show was WBO female Minimumweight champion Kumiko Seeser Ikehara (7-1-2, 3) who managed to take a very close technical decision over Kayoko Ebata (8-6, 4). Sadly for Ebata this was her 4th loss in world title bouts and it now seems unlikely for her to get another.

We saw more Japanese world title action on May 9th as WBC female Minimumweight champion Yuko Kuroki (13-4-1, 6) retained her title with a wide points win against Masae Akitaya (9-6-2, 3). For Kuroki this was the second defense of her title and it seems likely that the 24 year old is only going to get better and better. Sadly for Akitaya this was her 4th set back in world title bouts and the 37 year old, who actually fought on her birthday, is clearly coming to the end of her career.

Also in action on May 9th was the iconic Hozumi Hasegawa (34-5, 15) who put on a stellar performance to clearly defeat the heavy handed Mexican Horacio Garcia (29-1, 21). The bout was Hasegawa's first for more than a year and he looked like a fighter who had more fight in him than we had expected. On the other hand Garcia was disappointing and never looked like really testing the talented Japanese southpaw.

Sadly May 9th wasn't all good for Japanese fighters as it ended with Tomoki Kameda (31-1, 19) suffering his first professional defeat. Kameda, who vacated the WBO Bantamweight title, took on WBA “regular” champion Jamie McDonnell (26-2-1, 12) and despite dropping McDonnell in round 3 Kameda came up short on the cards. The Japanese fighter suffered his first loss though there has since been a lot of talk regarding a rematch later in the year.

On May 12th we saw the ring return of former world champion Kompayak Porpramook (51-5, 36). The Thai had been out of the ring for 21 months following his October 2013 loss to Koki Eto in a FOTY contender. His return was a very low key affair against the debuting Fahpratan Kwanjaisrikot (0-1) and it was no surprise when Kompayak stopped his foe in the 2nd round.

We had one of the biggest upsets of the year, so far, on May 16th when unheralded Filipino Eden Sonsona (34-6-2, 12) shocked previously unbeaten Mexican fighter Adrian Estrella (22-1, 20). Estrella had been touted as a future world title contender though was stopped in the 2nd round by Sonsona who may well find himself capable of getting a sizeable payday next time out.

On the same night we saw Kazakh puncher Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30) continue his reign of terror in the Middleweight division. Golovkin, defending his WBC “interim” and WBA “super” titles saw off Willie Monroe Jr (19-2, 6) in the 6th round. Monroe had given a spirited effort, especially given that he was down twice in round 2, though it did often seem like Golovkin was toying with his American foe.

May 23rd saw our attention turning to South Korea where Hyun Mi Choi (10-0-1, 3) retained her WBA female Super Featherweight title with a wide decision win over Japanese veteran Chika Mizutani (14-5, 7). Choi was in control through out the bout and looked very talented whilst Mizutani generally looked out classed but brave.

On May 28th we saw Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (34-4-1, 31) score one of his best wins to date as he mowed down Mexican Jose Salgado (34-3-2, 27) in 4 rounds. This bout was for the WBC “silver” Super Flyweight title and with the win Srisaket is now the mandatory challenger for WBC world champion Carlos Cuadras, the man that actually took the title from Srisaket last year.

The final highlight of the month came on May 30th when Japanese teenager Kosei Tanaka (5-0, 2) claimed the WBO Minimumweight title in just his 5th professional bout. The youngster over-came Mexican Julian Yedras (24-2, 13) in a compelling 12 round affair which saw Tanaka show off everything he was capable off in the ring, including a few defensive issues that will hopefully be worked on when he gets back in to the ring. The youngster became the “quickest” Japanese world champion beating the previous record of Naoya Inoue by a single fight.

(Image courtesy of boxingnews.jp)