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One of the things we've strangely not featured many of in this series, so far, have been brutal body shots. Thankfully that changes today as we get to share a truly horrific body shot KO scored by a man who was fighting in his second professional bout, but would later go on to become a true legend of the sport. This was nasty, and rewatching it can genuinely make you feel sorry for the recipient, who just know was pissing blood for a week afterwards. Joichiro Tatsuyoshi (1-0, 1) Vs Chucherd Eausampan (7-2, 4) When he turned professional in 1989 Joichiro Tatsuyoshi was already a big deal. He was only a teenager but the Osakan press had covered him for a while, he had been a destructive amateur and had even battered future world title challenger Azael Moran in sparring 1987, whilst still an amateur. Following his his sparring session with Moran, which instantly went down in Japanese folklore, the press had followed Tatsuyoshi. He wasn't just a press figure however and his enigmatic charisma and confidence had grabbed the attention of the Japanese fans as well. When Tatsuyoshi debuted in September 1989 he had made light work of Korean Sang Myun Choi and he returned to the ring in February 1990 to take on Thai foe Chucherd Eausampan, with the bout coming on the under-card of Mike Tyson's bout with Buster Douglas. On paper this was a massive step up in class for Tatsuyoshi, but one that he was expected to pass with no issues. That wouldn't actually be the case, but more about that a little bit later. Although Eausampan isn't too well known he would distinguish himself as a genuinely notable journeyman on the Asian scene. Prior to travelling to Japan for this bout he had won the Thai Bantamweight title, before losing first defense against future world champion Daorung Chuwatana. As well as the loss to Daorung his only other set back had come in Indonesia to Wongso Indrajit, with both of those losses being 10 round decision losses. On paper few expected Tatsuyoshi to lose, but they did expect him to need to go rounds, and have his stamina tested against a tough, but somewhat limited, Thai. In the first round Tatsuyoshi was surprisingly dropped, being put down by a huge left hook from the Thai. Prior to the knockdown Tatsuyoshi was in control, but the knockdown instantly gave Eausampan a huge boost in confidence. Tatsuyoshi wasn't particularly hurt but was embarrassed. Coming out for the second round Tatsuyoshi came out with a point to prove, whilst Eausampan looked to strike, thinking the Japanese youngster was a bit chinny. The aggression of the Thai left him taking risks, and left him open. Tatsuyoshi would find a home for his uppercuts to the mid-section and with just over 2 minutes of the second gone he would land the perfect body shot. The finishing shot was a left uppercut to the body. It left Eausampan rolling on the canvas and Tatsuyoshi walked over his man, waving at him as he did so. It was as if Tatsuyoshi wanted him to get back up and take more punishment, they knew there was no chance of anyone getting back up after the shot. After this bout Tatsuyoshi would go on to have a legendary career and become the face of Japanese boxing for much of the 1990's. Even now, well after his last fight, he's a figure of admiration and named as an inspiration as to why youngsters take up the sport. The effect of his career in the current Japanese boxing scene really cannot be over-stated and his still a huge influence in the sport. Sadly for the Thai this began a massive downturn in his career and he would only pick up a single win after this loss. He would prove his toughness, hearing the final bell against the likes of Kiyoshi Hatanaka, Daorung Chuwatana, twice, but punishment did accumulate and he ended up being stopped a number of times later in his career.
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We've all heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and we've decided to put our spin on things with "Six degrees of separation" looking to connect Asian fighters you may never have assumed were connected! Today we connect former 2-time WBC Bantamweight champion Joichiro Tatsuyoshi to former Japanese fighter Yuji Watanabe, himself a 2-time world title challenger.
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-September 29th 1989 was when Joichiro Tatsuyoshi made his professional debut, on a card at the Prefectural Gymnasium in Osaka. Also on that card was a 23 year old Flyweight called Takahiro Mizuno, who scored a 4th round KO over Yasuo Yamamoto. 2-It's fair to say that Takahiro Mizuno is not a particularly well known fighter, in fact very few reading this will be aware off him. However he did fight several notable fighters, the most well known of which was Yuri Arbachakov, who he faced for the Japanese Flyweight title in 1991. That bout was for the vacant title which had been stripped from Puma Toguchi, who was supposed to defend against Arbachakov. 3-The heavy handed Yuri Arbachakov was one of a a number of fighters who signed with Kyoei Gym in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Arbachakov made his debut on the same show as many of those Kyoei fighters, including Viachaslau Ianouski, Vyacheslav Yakovlev and, most notably Orzubek Nazarov. 4-Hard hitting Lightweight Orzubek Nazarov made his mark by becoming the first Kyrgyzstani world champion, winning the WBA Lightweight title in 1993 and holding it until 1998. During his successful reign he notched up 6 defenses of the title, and scored defenses in South Africa, the USA and Japan. Sadly his reign came to an end in 1998 when he lost a decision in France to Jean-Baptiste Mendy. On the same show as that loss Kazakh born Russian Anatoly Alexandrov claimed the WBO Super Featherweight title. 5-Sadly Anatoly Alexandrov is better known for his title loss than any of his successful defenses, and that was due to the fact he lost the title in brutal fashion to Brazilian great Acelino Freitas in terrifying fashion. The bout lasted just 101 seconds but saw Alexandrov left out cold for several minutes. Despite his title loss being brutal it's worth noting he managed to go 12 rounds in a close decision loss to Genaro Hernandez in 1997. 6-The fantastically talented Genaro Hernandez didn't face many Asian fighters during his career, which ended in 1998 following a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr, though he did face two Japanese challengers in 1992, when he was the WBA Super Featherweight champion. The second of those was the then 10-0 Yuji Watanabe, who he stopped in 6 rounds. We've all heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and we've decided to put our spin on things with "Six degrees of separation" looking to connect Asian fighters you may never have assumed were connected! Today we connect former WBC Flyweight champion Medgoen Singsurat to former 2-time WBC Bantamweight champion Joichiro Tatsuyoshi.
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-Thailand's Medgoen Singsurat is best known for his WBC Flyweight title win, which came against Manny Pacquiao in 1999. Sadly Singsurat's reign was a short one, and lasted just 8 months, before he lost the belt in his second defense, against Filipino fighter Malcolm Tunacao. 2-The often over-looked and forgotten Malcolm Tunacao has a lengthy career that ran from 1998 to 2014, and his world title win came less than 22 months after his professional debut. Sadly his reign was also a super short one, and he also lost in his second defense, being stopped inside a round by Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, who would go on to have a legendary career after his win over Tunacao. 3-The talented Pongsaklek Wonjongkam managed to really make the division his in the early part of the 2000's, making 21 defense of the title over his 2 reigns with the belt. Rather interestingly there haven't been that many 2-time WBC Flyweight champions, in fact Wonjongkam was only the 5th man to recapture the title, and the first in over 20 years. The previous man to achieve that feat was fellow Thai Sot Chitalada. 4-The talented Sot Chitalada was one of the more well travelled Thai's from the 1980's and 1990's. In fact from his 31 professional bouts 7 were away from home, and they took place in countries as far afield as Jamaica, Kuwait and the United Kingdom. His final fight on the road was his amazing 1990 bout with Jung Koo Chang in Seoul. on the same day at a different venue in Seoul, Yong Soo Choi suffered his first professional loss. 5-During much of the 1990's Korean fighter Yong Soo Choi was a must watch action fighter, with a string of thrilling battles, including a trilogy with Yamato Mitani, 2 thrilling wars with Takanori Hatakeyama, and a brutal clash with Lakva Sim. His final world title bout came in 2003 when he lost to Sirimongkol Singwancha in Thailand. 6-Thailand's Sirimongkol Singwancha had a bizarre career that saw him fight more than 100 bouts, serve prison time, feature in a gay magazine and win world titles at both Bantamweight and Super Featherweight. One of his most famous bouts was his WBC Bantamweight title loss, which came in a sensational 7 round bout with Japanese star Joichiro Tatsuyoshi in 1997! When we think about great upsets we tend to think of the big shocks and some times over-look how great the bouts themselves are. Today we get to show an amazing upset, that came in a sensational bout way back in 1997. The bout was among the very best bouts of the year, and is something every fight fan should have seen by now. But if you haven't, then there really is no better time than now! Date November 22nd 1997 Venue Osaka-Jo Hall, Osaka, Osaka, Japan Sirimongkol Singwancha (16-0, 6) Vs Joichiro Tatsuyoshi (14-4-1, 11) Today's upset is a bout that really deserves to be mentioned at one of the best of 1997, and one of the best to ever give us an upset. In one corner was unbeaten Thai Sirimongkol Singwanchan, the then WBC Bantamweight champion who was just 20 years old but looked like he was going to be one of the major faces of Thai of boxing. He had debuted in 1994 and had won the WBC "interim" Bantamweight title in 1996 before being upgraded in 1997 when Wayne McCullough left the division. He had made 3 defenses of the title, including one against veteran Victor Rabanales. He looked like a long term champion in the making, he was young, talented, tough and skilled, with under-rated power that he was still developing. In the early 1990's the enigmatic Joichiro Tatsuyoshi was among the most popular Japanese fighters out there. He was charismatic, unique, a huge fan favourite, but also a fighter who often relied on his chin rather than his skills. As a result he took a lot of punishment very early in his career and his eyes were damaged by the wars that he was involved in. By 1997 he was widely regarded as being a done fighter, battled against the likes of Victor Rabanales, Yasuei Yakushiji and Daniel Zaragoza had taken their toll on him. He was "only" 27, but an old 27 who hadn't scored a win of note in well over 4 years and had had to comeback from a detached retina. Before the bout Tatsuyoshi seemed to suggest that if he lost he had no where left to go in the sport, and would retire. He was the under-dog. He was at home, but was up against a fighter who looked like an emerging star. Early on the bout had gone the way many had expected. The unbeaten Thai looked confident, calm, quick and accurate, he fought behind his jab and repeatedly tagged Tatsuyoshi up top through the first rounds. The Japanese local had moments, but was putting in a lot more effort than the Thai champion, who looked very composed and comfortable despite the crowd being well behind Tatsuyoshi. The first few rounds saw Tatsuyoshi working hard too close the distance, but struggling with the jab and intelligent boxing of the Thai, who limited Tatsuyoshi's success to just a shot or two at a time. It was smart work from the young champion, who was trying to take the fight out of Tatsuyoshi, pick his moments and neutralise the fans. Tatsuyoshi however wasn't having it, and kept coming forward. In round 4 and 5 we finally saw Tatsuyoshi get up close and force a higher tempo whilst the Thai began to look like some one who had struggled to make weight, or maybe over-looked his Japanese foe. Those rounds saw the bout turn in favour of Tatsuyoshi and the excitement level grew, the belief that we were seeing one great final performance from the popular "Joe of Naniwa". It seemed like Tatsuyoshi was going to break the unbeaten Thai champion. That we were going to see the the damaged and battle worn warrior claim a remarkable win. Then Tatsuyoshi began to look like he was feeling the pace. His effort and drive through the 4th and 5th round came at a cost whilst Sirimongkol appeared to be getting a chance to recover. Things were heading back to the way people had expected. Tatsuyoshi however wasn't willing to give up his dream of continuing, of proving he wasn't shot. That he wasn't done, and some how, despite being hurt early in the round, he pulled out a thunderbolt, landing a brutal body shot that sent the Thai on to the canvas. Sirimongkol beat the count but couldn't survive the follow up attack, which forced the referee to step ip. The man most thought was shot, was damaged goods and heading to retirement had pulled it out. He had put in one of the best performances of his career, dug deep and repaid the fans who shown him so much love. Surprisingly Tatsuyoshi would then make two subsequent defenses of the title, before losing the belt in 1998 to Veeraphol Sahaprom, who went on to have the type of reign some had expected of Sirimongkol. As for Sirimongkol he would bounce back well, and move up through the weights, claiming the WBC Super Featherweight title in 2002 and was still fighting more than 20 years after this loss, having a rather amazing career. The loss was a big set back, but was certainly not the end for the Thai. One of the most important fighters in Japanese boxing history is the charismatic Joichiro Tatsuyoshi (20-7-1, 14). His record, on paper, might not look like anything special but his career really was something else. He was the Japanese star of the 1990's, a multi-time world champion and the inspiration to a generation of Japanese fighters that followed him. Although Tatsuyoshi suffered 7 losses in his 28 bout career he was involved in 10 world title bouts, 11 if you include an interim world title bout again Victor Rabanales, won a world title in his 8th bout and attracted a huge amount of fans to sport. His appeal to female fans was described, by some, as being similar to that of Oscar De La Hoya's impact in the US and he was an absolute star. Even now, more than a decade after his last bout, he gets an awful lot of attention from those reporting in the sport. Today we are going to bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Joichiro Tatsuyoshi 1-As a teenager Tatsuyoshi was a talented amateur, running up a reported 18-1 (18) record. There was hope of him going to the 1988 Olympics but after missing out on the games, due to a loss in qualifying, he left the gym and reportedly spent around 6 months homeless, before meeting the woman that would later become his wife. 2-Tatsuyoshi admitted to being bullied as a child. Although he was bullied he did add that he had never not a school fight, though has been quoted as saying he never actually punched anyone properly in those school fights, instead hitting them with open palm slaps. 3-Tatsuyoshi often used the "Death Game" theme, from the as his ring walk music. 4-In 1987, years before making his professional debut Tatsuyoshi was used as a sparring partner by Azael Moran, who was putting final touches to his preparations to face Takuya Muguruma for the WBA Bantamweight title. Tatsuyoshi, then a teenager amateur, ended up embarrassing the then highly ranked Moran, and had the sparring cut short. In fact Moran was so badly embarrassed after 1 round that his team stopped the sparring. 5-Among many part time jobs that Tatsuyoshi had during his amateur career were jobs at a Udon restaurant and a Sauna 6-Following Tatsuyoshi's WBC Bantamweight title win against Greg Richardson the Japanese fighter had to spend a lengthy time away from the ring due to a retinal fissure. It was one of a host of problems he had with his eyes during his career. 7-Tatsuyoshi's father died in January 1999, at the age of 52. 8-Tatsuyoshi was named after Jo Yabuki, from anime Ashita No Joe. Interestingly he would be featured, in art form, in another major Japanese boxing work of fiction, being featured on the cover of Hajime No Ippo "Chapter 183", where he is also mentioned by name. 9-Tatsuyoshi has a very close relationship to Japanese actress Kayoko Kishimoto, with the two having a brother-sister like friendship. Although Kishimoto isn't well known in the west she is a very highly regarded actress in Japan, best supporting actress at the 23rd Japan Academy Prize for her role in Kikujiro (1999). She's also well known for her commercials from the 1980's. 10-Other people Tatsuyoshi is known to be friends with are baseball star Ichiro Suzuki and musician Tomoyasu Hotei, the man who did "Battle Without Honor or Humanity", aka the Kill Bill theme song. Earlier this year we began doing some short historical pieces about individuals from the sport. We intend to continue them later in the year, but for now we have decided to spin that idea off slightly and focus less on an individuals and more on the stories we see from the East. Today we look at an incident from Spring 1987 that featured a then 16 year old youngster and a man preparing to challenge for a world title. The story isn't too well known in the west, but was a hot topic in Japanese boxing circles around the time, and helped increase the aura around one of Japanese boxing's future stars.
Lets begin by taking you all back to early 1987. Bernardo Pinago had vacated the WBA Bantamweight title, to move up in weight, and to fill the vacancy, just weeks later Takuya Muguruma was going to face Panama's Azael Moran. Muguruma was a fighter from the Osaka Teiken gym, along with a promising young amateur fighter by the name of Joichiro Tatsuyoshi. At the time Tatsuyoshi was a promising 16 year old amateur with an 11-0 (11) record in the unpaid ranks. To help prepare for the bout with Muguruma an agreement was made for Moran to spar a Japanese amateur provided by the gym. We tend to see these types of things quite often a few days before a fight. The amateur the gym sent for Moran to spar with, as we assume you can guess, was Tatsuyoshi. The plan had been for Moran to use the session to show what he could do for the media in attendance. The two we scheduled to spar for 3 rounds, and it was assumed that Moran, who was highly ranked by the WBA, would have a rather easy time with the Japanese teenage, shake some rust and move on to the bout with Muguruma with no issues. As it turned out no one told Tatsuyoshi to take it lightly on Moran. Presumeably no one thought they had to, he was inexperienced and still a kid. They would, surely, have assumed Moran, who had close to 20 pro bouts by this point and was about to fight for a world title, wasn't wanting a teenager to hold back in a spar. What was supposed to be a 3 round spar was cancelled after just a round. Moran was left with a bloodied nose, serious embarrassment and his team were furious. They felt they had been double crossed, though it turned out their man had legitimately been embarrassed by a young, inexperienced amateur. For Moran the who situation must have been mentally crippling. If he had been beaten up to the point of cancelling a spar with a youngster from the Osaka Teiken gym, what was Muguruma going to be able to do to him in an actual fight? As it turned out Muguruma would stop Moran in the 5th round of their clash. As for Tatsuyoshi the whole incident boosted his career massively. He had a huge boost to his reputation, the story of Tatsuyoshi beating up Moran went across Japan like wild fire and he was being dubbed a future world champion. Of course we all know what Tatsuyoshi would later go on to achieve, becoming a star during the 1990's. This however showed his potential very early! *Note - There are some minor inconsistencies between different paper reports from the time, though they all agree that the two sparred, for a single round in Spring 1987, with Moran cancelling the final 2 rounds of the session due to Tatsuyoshi overwhelming him. This past Monday we had the chance to see an excellent All Japanese world title fight, with Kosei Tanaka narrowly defeating Sho Kimura to claim the WBO Flyweight world title. It was the latest in a long line of amazing All Japanese world title fighters dating back over 50 years. Here we take a look at 5 memorable all Japanese world title bouts. Yoshiaki Numata (33-4, 9) Vs Hiroshi Kobayashi (50-6-2, 7) December 14th 1967 - Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan The first ever all Japanese world title fight saw Yoshiaki Numata battle against Hiroshi Kobayashi. Coming in the the bout Numata was the WBC and WBA Super Featherweight champion, having taken the titles from the legendary Flash Elorde. When he won the titles he was the 5th ever Japanese world champion. In his first defense Numata faced off with the much more experienced Kobayashi. Kobayashi had made his name on the Japanese domestic scene mainly, where he had been the Featherweight champion, making 7 defenses before moving up in weight to challenge Numata. The bout was an action packed one and would be award the Japanese fight of the year. Notably both men went on to have success after this bout and when the WBC and WBA titles split there was an 18 months time window when the two men were both world champions. The bout also got 41.9% of the audience tuning in from the Kanto region, one of the highest ever for a boxing contest! Masao Oba (31-2-1, 13) vs Susumu Hanagata (34-10-8, 4) II March 4th 1972-Nihon University Auditorium, Tokyo, Japan Amazingly it would be more than 4 between the first and the second all-Japanese world title fight, though the wait was worth it with WBA Flyweight champion Masao Oba, one of the greatest Japanese fighters of all time, battling against Susumu Hanagata. This was a rematch of a bout the two men had had in 1968, when an 18 year old Oba was beaten by Hanagata, suffering his second career loss. Following their first bout Oba had become one the best fighters in the division, reeling off 15 straight wins and making two world title defenses. Hanagata had gone 10-2 following their first bout, with both losses coming on the road in world title bouts. This was high work rate and very exciting from both men. Interestingly Oba's bout with Orlando Amores was voted the Japanese fight of the year for 1972 and unfortunately Oba would pass away less than a year after this bout, following a motor vehicle accident. Hanagata would go on to fight for a few more years and would actually score a huge win over Chartchai Chionoi in 1974 to put his name in the history books. Yasuei Yakushiji (22-2-1, 16) Vs Joichiro Tatsuyoshi (10-1-1, 8) December 4th 1994-Rainbow Hall, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Almost 30 years after the first ever all Japanese world title fight we had the first “unification” bout between two Japanese fighters as WBC Bantamweight champion Yasuei Yakushiji and Interim champion Joichiro Tatsuyoshi faced off at the Rainbow Hall. This bout was massive for Japanese boxing with Tatsuyoshi being the face of boxing in Osaka, due to his charismatic and exciting style. Yakushiji on the other hand was the more technically correct boxer, but was over-looked by some due to the popularity of Tatsuyoshi. That was despite the fact Yakushiji was the “real” champion and was looking to make his third defense. This bout would achieve an audience number of 39.4% in the Kanto region, another of the highest ever in Japan, and like the Tanaka Vs Kimura bout it would live up to all the expectations with high tempo action, heavy shots landed by both and very little to split the men, both of whom were looking worse for wear at the end of the bout. This would be another winner of the Japanese Fight of the Year award. Takanori Hatakeyama (23-1-2, 18) vs Hiroyuki Sakamoto (35-4, 25) October 11th 2000-Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan In 2000 Japanese fight fans had another all-Japanese Fight of the Year as WBA Lightweight champion Takanori Hatakeyama and Hiroyuki Sakamoto beat the ever living snot out of each other in a bloody, violent, thrilling clash. Hatakeyama was the champion going into the bout, he enjoying his second reign as a world champion having previously held the WBA Super Featherweight title, and had won the Lightweight belt in brilliant fashion stopping Gilberto Serrano, with this being his first defense. Sakamnoto had lost two other world title fights, including one to Serrano, but had won the OPBF and Japanese titles. This was mostly an inside war fought between two men who did not want to hear the final bell. As mentioned this was a Japanese Fight of the Year and seemingly took a lot out of both men. Neither man would go on to score a win of note, and in fact between them the only real good result was a draw in 2001 between Hatakeyama and Rick Yoshimura. This fight essentially ruined both men. Kazuto Ioka (9-0, 6) Vs Akira Yaegashi (15-2, 8) June 20th 2012-Bodymaker Colosseum, Osaka, Osaka, Japan Almost 20 years after the brilliant Yakushiji/Tatsuyoshi bout we had the first true unification bout, as WBC Minimumweight champion Kazuto Ioka faced off with WBA champion Akira Yaegashi. The bout was a brilliant contest with a combination of skills and heart, with Yaegashi fighting through badly swollen eyes for much of the fight and managing to drag Ioka into his fight. Ioka always looked like the guy with more rounded skills, and speed, but Yaegashi's heart, determination and sheer will to win made this into a fantastic bout. It managed to give us some of the best rounds of the year and was another of the All-Japanese world title bouts to be awarded the Japanese Fight of the Year. In the years since this bout both men have moved through the weights, with both claiming world titles at Light Flyweight and Flyweight, and now, remarkably, both are competing at Super Flyweight as they look to become 4-weight champions. It's worth noting that there has been a lot All Japanese title bouts than we've covered. These range from the controversial, such as Daisuke Naito's bout with Daiki Kameda, to the frankly massive contest between Daisuke Naito and Koki Kameda which got a ridiculous 43.1% audience share. They also include other Japanese fights of the year, such as Takashi Uchiyama's bout with Daiki Kaneko.
Amazingly there has only ever been one all-Japanese world title fight to end in the first round, and that was the second bout between Masamori Tokuyama and Katsushige Kawashima. Interestingly the trilogy between Tokuyama and Kawashima saw Tokuyama win 2-1 taking decisions in both of his wins. Amazingly there has only ever been 1 draw in an all Japanese world title fight, that came in 2001, in the aforementioned bout between Takenori Hatakeyama and Rick Yoshimura. For those who care about TV numbers all 3 of the high rating bouts were screened on TBS. |
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