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Our "Reliving the Finish" series is a chance to look at some of the best KO's in the history of the sport, and we have one such KO today, in fact it's long been one of our absolute favourite KO's and is among the most visibly appealing KO's ever. Sadly it did come against a rather unknown fighter, but given that we enjoy KO's for what they are, rather than who they come against, we can still absolute love this one! Takanori Hatakeyama (12-0, 10) vs Jae Woon Park (0-0) We suspect any regular readers will be fully aware of our love with Takanori Hatakeyama. The Japanese Super Featherweight come Lightweight is a regular in our Closet Classic series, and his wars against the likes of Yong Soo Choi, Lakva Sim, Koji Arisawa, Hiroyuki Sakamoto and Rick Yoshimura are all worthy of a watch any day of the week. Here we're looking at his 13th professional bout, and it was a contest that came a long time before he won a world title. Despite that this is probably his most visually amazing KO. Although Hatakeyama was racking up wins, often quick, he wasn't a man with much quality on his resume by this point. He had won the 1994 Rookie of the Year but was still being matched relatively softly whilst getting ready for a potential OPBF title fight. Jae Woon Park on the other hand was an unknown Korean. According to Boxrec this was his debut, though we suspect he had had a few fights even if Boxrec haven't recorded them in their database. The evidence for that racks up with this being a scheduled 10 rounder and with the on screen graphic before the fight suggesting he was a ranked fighter and with Park not having another recorded fight until 2001. Regardless of Park's history before this bout it's really this contest that he's known for. The first round saw the Korean put up a fair effort. He didn't win the round but did prove that he wasn't there to just fall over the first time he was touched. Sadly for him though things changed massively in round 2, within the blink of an eye. As soon as round 2 began Hatakeyama rushed as Park. Park saw a chance to strike and threw a right hand, which was partially blocked by Hatakeyama. Then it was Hatakeyama's time to let a shot go. When the Japanese fighter fired off he did so with a monstrous and lightning quick left hook. The shot landed clean and sent Park spinning, with his head swivelling on the spot, and his body following, turning 180 before crashing with his neck falling onto one of the ropes before he bounced back into the ring. It was gorgeous and looked like a KO from a movie. This is a truly spectacular finish and something worth watching back over and over. The round starts and within the blink of an eye we have one of the greatest looking KO's ever.
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Typically the opening round of a fight sees two men feeling their way into a contest, getting a read on their opponent and getting things like their timing and range down. Sometimes however we end up with an opening round which is little more than a flat out war, a tear up and the type of round that leaves both men taking a lot of punishment. Today, in Remarkable Rounds, we look at one of the most exciting opening rounds to take place in a Japanese ring, with two men desperate to win, and two men both willing to lay it all on the line. Takanori Hatakeyama (23-1-2, 18) vs Hiroyuki Sakamoto (35-4, 25) In the summer of 2000 Takanori Hatakeyama returned to the ring after almost a year away and stopped Gilberto Serrano to claim the WBA Lightweight title. That win saw him become a 2-weight champion and build on his reputation as one of the most exciting and fun to watch Japanese fighters on the planet. He had, in 1999, lost to Lakva Sim and seemed to suggest that was him done with the sport, but then his hunger came back and h showed, against Serrano, that he still had it. After his win over Serrano we saw Hatakeyama announce that the man he wanted to face was former world title challenger, and fellow Japanese fighter, Hiroyuki Sakamoto. Sakamoto was regarded as a quiet fighter out of the ring, but the type of fighter who let his fists do the talking in the ring. He had had an horrific upbringing, which had included being abused by family and later put into a foster home, which had lead to a big fan following in Japan, and with his heavy hands and exciting style he made for great fights. He had come up short against Serrano, in a thriller, and sadly for him his career had been full of bad luck, including the injuries that cost him against Serrano. The two men both knew how to put on a show, and between them they had been in numerous thrilling wars. This ended up being another war, with a truly sensational opening round. As soon as the fight started Hatakeyama was half way across the ring, which seemed to fight up Sakamoto who unloaded bombs at mid range. From there on the round became a war, with both men landing monstrous hooks at mid-range, and trying to take the fight on the inside, where Sakamoto's uppercuts landed clean. Just over a minute into the round Sakamoto's left eye was a bloodied mess, but that hardly mattered to him as he continued coming forward, backing Hatakeyama on to the ropes. After a great barrage from the challenger Hatakeyama came back, unleashing shots with both hands onto Sakamoto, who tried to respond with uppercuts in a round that simply flew by. Although there was no knockdowns, and both men complained about head clashes, this was still a brutal, brutal way to begin a world title fight. The risks and punishment both men took in the opening round was a sign of what they would put each other through in one of the most under-rated fights of 2000. This was brutal and started in the best way imaginable, with both men landing bombs! 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-weight world Takanori Hatakeyama to Korean legend Ki Soo Kim! 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-Japanese warrior Takanori Hatakeyama was one of the Japanese stars of the 1990's and early 2000's. He's best known for winning both the WBA Super Featherweight and Lightweight titles. Sadly for Hatakeyama both of his reigns at world level were short, with his first reign lasting less than a year. His first reign saw him defending his title once, with a draw against Mexican fighter Saul Duran. 2-Although Saul Duran never won a world title during his 62 fight career, he did fight a relative who's who of who. Just going through a few names of Duran's opponents is staggering and gives us not only Hatakeyama but also Noree Jockygym, Stevie Johnson, Antonio Pitalua, Jose Luis Castillo, Hector Camacho, Demetrius Andrade and Andy Lee. 3-Irish fighter Andy Lee was tipped for big things when he turned professional. Whilst he didn't manage to be a long term champion he did win the WBO Middleweight title, and held it for a little over 2 years. Prior to turning professional he had been a stand out amateur competing at the highest level. At the 2003 AIBA World championships he was beaten by Gennady Golovkin, who ended up taking the gold medal.
4-As a professional Gennady Golovkin has had a very impressive career which included a long reign as the WBA Middleweight champion. Included in those wins was a 3rd round TKO win over Makoto Fuchigami in May 2012. 5-Prior to losing to Gennady Golokvin we had seen Japanese Middleweight Makoto Fuchigami unify the Japanese and OPBF Middleweight titles with a brilliant and thrilling win over Koji Sato, in a real closet classic. Another man who won both OPBF and Japanese Middleweight titles was Hachiro Tatsumi, a fighter who was active in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. In fact Tatsumi was the first OPBF, then kn own as OBF, Middleweight champion. 6-Although long forgotten by the boxing world Hachiro Tatsumi was a massively important fighter in the mid 1900's for the Japanese scene. He fought over 100 times during a long and fruitful career that saw him winning the OPBF Middleweight title 3 times, the Japanese Middleweight title 3 times and the Japanese Welterweight title twice. Another multi-time OPBF Middleweight champion was Ki Soo Kim, who held the title twice in the 1960's, and actually defended it whilst a Light Middleweight world champion!  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 world champions Ratanapol Sor Vorapin and Takanori Hatakeyama. 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-Fantastic little Thai Ratanapol Sor Vorapin was a brilliant fighter in the 1990's running up numerous defenses of the IBF Minimumweight title over 2 separate reigns. Although he was never the best in the division he was one of the staples at the top. He wasn't the only fighter in the family however and his brother Ratanachai Sor Vorapin was also a world class fighter, winning a world title at Bantamweight. 2-Whilst Ratanachai Sor Vorapin is best known for his WBO Bantamweight title reign, which lasted over a year, that's not the only thing of note he did. In fact he fought several opponents of note outside of his title reign, including Indonesian great Chris John. In fact John had one of his closest decision wins in 2002 when he narrowly over-came the Thai. 3-Fantastic Indonesian Chris John is best known for his lengthy reign as the WBA Featherweight champion that wasn't the only title he held during his career. Another belt that John Held was the PABA Featherweight title, which was later held by thrill a minute Korean warrior Ji Hoon Kim. 4-Notably the PABA Featherweight title wasn't the only regional title that Ji Hoon Kim held. Later in his career he moved up in weight and won the WBO Asia Pacific Welterweight title, which was later won, in an all out war, by Japanese puncher Yuki Beppu. 5-Japanese Welterweight puncher Yuki Beppu first made a name for himself in December 2014, when he won the All Japan Rookie of the Year at Welterweight with a KO2 win against Hironobu Matsunaga. 6-Hironobu Matsunaga one of the latest starts from the Yokohama Hikari Gym. That's the same gym that lead Takanori Hatakeyama to being a 2-weight world champion!  Having recently covered Lakva Sim in this series it seemed like an obvious next choice to cover Takanori Hatakeyama, the man that Sim beat to claim his first world title. Although not one of the legendary names among non-Japanese fans Hatakeyama was a legitimate fan favourite in his homeland, a 2-weight champion, an exciting fighter and someone who was seen as a must watching warrior.
Whilst we understand he wasn't a massive name, he's certainly a very interesting fighter, so with that in mind let us bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Takanori Hatakeyama 1-Hatakeyama dropped out of high school to pursue his boxing career, though did re-enrol after his retirement from the ring and graduated. 2-Like many Japanese fighters from the 1990's and 00's Hatakeyama was inspired to become a boxer after watching Joichiro Tatsuyoshi on TV. Before wanting to become a boxer he had wanted to become a baseball player. 3-Hatakeyama often used walk out music from Japanese rock star Kyosuke Himuro, including "STAY", "Re-born" and "NATIVE STRANGER" 4-In 1998 Hatakeyama had his first, and only, Japanese title fight as he took on the then 18-0 Koji Arisawa. At the time this was regarded as the biggest Japanese title fight, due to the popularity of both men. Despite only being a Japanese title fight it headlined at the Kokugikan and was televised live on Fuji TV. This was an absolute barn burner and live up the hype that Japanese media had given it. Strangely however it had come after Hatakeyama had won the OPBF title and fought at world level, essentially dropping down to Japanese title level after mixing against the divisional elite. 5-Interestingly Hatakeyama took part in Kazu Arisawa's retirement ceremony, sparring with Arisawa. Kazu is actually the twin of Koji Arisawa, the man Hatakeyama beat in that Japanese title fight. Rather notably Kazu had fought, and lost, on the under-card of the 1998 bout between his twin and Hatakeyama. 6-In June 1999 Hatakeyama lost the WBA Super Featherweight title to Lakva Sim, a loss that saw Sim crowned as the first Mongolian world champion in history. Following that bout Hatakeyama actually announced his retirement, announcing he was hanging them up in July. The following year however he returned as an active fighter, deciding to return in January 2000. He would later go on to win the WBA Lightweight title in his return fight, in June 2000 almost a year to the day that he lost to Sim. 7-Hatakeyama is married to Kumiko Kiyohara, who works on Japanese TV as a "free announce", meaning she's unaffiliated to any particular TV channel. Reportedly the two got married in 2006. This is actually his second marriage, and he has a child with his ex-wife. 8-During his career Hatakeyama was a 2-time Japanese fighter of the year (1998, 2000) and was twice a winner in the Japanese Match of the Year (also 1998 and 2000) 9-Hatakeyama currently runs a boxing gym with former WBA Middleweight champion, and close friend, Shinji Takehara. The gym the two run together has helped guide Naoko Fujioka's rise to being the first 5 weight world champion from Japan! 10-Since hanging up the gloves Hatakeyama has been busy. Not only does he run a gym, as mentioned above, but he's also worked as a commentator and an actor, among other things. Notably he has featured in several movies, including the main role in the 2003 movie "Round 1", where he plays "Toppo"  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 world champions Young Kyun Park and Takanori Hatakeyama. 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-Dubbed the "Bulldoxer" Young Kyun Park was one of the real exciting Korean fighters from the early 1990's and a very solid WBA Featherweight champion. Sadly he's not as well remembered as he should have been, and whilst he burned very brightly at one point his prime was very short, with a world title reign that lasted less than 3 years. When he reign ended it came to Eloy Rojas. 2-Eloy Rojas' WBA Featherweight title win over Park came in 1993, and what is often forgotten about the Venezuelan is that he was a Teiken managed fighter at one point. In fact he is one of several Teiken managed Venezuelan fighters to win a world title, along with Edwin Valero and Jorge Linares.  3-Jorge Linares may not have been the toughest boxer out there but there is no doubting his skills, and he is widely regarded as one of the most naturally boxers on the planet. His blinding hand speed and skills are through the roof and he is one of the most exciting fighters to watch. What often goes over-looked is that Linares' brother, Carlos Linares, as also a notable fighter, albeit significantly less successful than Jorge.
4-Whilst Carlos Linares is a bit of a forgotten name as a boxer, though is now distinguishing himself as a trainer at the Teiken gym, he was a really exciting fighter to watch. He lacked the well developed skills and boxing brain of his brother but made up for that with nasty power, scoring 8KO's in his 9 professional wins. His final bout came in 2007 when he lost to Tadashi Yuba, in a Japanese Middleweight title bout. 5-As a fan outside of Japan who Tadashi Yuba was and they will likely look confused. In Japan however he was a 5-weight national champion who fought close to 60 bouts. More than half of his career bouts took place at Korakuen Hall in a career that spanned form 1996 to 2014! In 1999 he fought Rick Yoshimura, with the two men fighting to a draw in a really under-rated bout for the Japanese Lightweight title. 6-Rick Yoshimura's only other draw, along with the Yuba one, came 4 fights later when he challenged WBA Lightweight champion Takanori Hatakeyama, in a barn burning thriller of a world title bout. For those who haven't seen that bout it's well worth a watch! 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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