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An interesting, though often over-looked fighter, is Koji Kobayashi (24-4-3, 15) who held the WBC and Lineal Flyweight title in the mid 1980's. His career was short, lasting less than 7 years between his debut and his final career bout, but he was someone who left a mark on the sport and helped establish one of the main Japanese gyms.
Kobayashi wasn't a typical boxer. He wasn't someone who had a long amateur career before turning professional but he was someone who had a dangerous straight left hand, under-rated skills and a suspect chin. In fact all 4 of his losses were by stoppage. He was a dangerous fighter, but one lacking durability and this generally made his fights fun to watch. They could, genuinely end, at any moment making his fights ones that you simply had to watch if you could To help shine a light on Kobayashi and his career we've decided that this week we're bringing you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Koji Kobayashi 1-Kobayashi graduated from the Nishogakusha University High School. Sadly it's not somewhere that has given us many boxers, with Kobayashi being the most notable, by far. One other fighter to graduate was former 4-time Japanese title challenger Yoshihiro Yamamoto, he's a distant second in terms of most notable fighters to have graduated from there. 2-Unlike many fighters, who turn to boxing for money, fame or to chase a sporting ambition, Kobayashi took to boxing to help maintain his health and fitness. He was reported not very good at sport and physical activity and before he started boxing was beaten in an arm wrestling contest by a girl. 3-Prior to taking to boxing Kobayashi had planned to be a designer. Of course the whole boxing thing worked out surprisingly well for him. 4-In February 1980 Kobayashi suffered his first professional loss, losing in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final at Flyweight to future world champion Jiro Watanabe inside a round. This was one of the very rare occasions where the two fighters in the All Japan Rookie of the Year final both went on to win a world title. 5-Kobayashi was the first world champion from the Kadoebi Gym, which has also guided Eagle Den Junlaphan, Yusuke Kobori and Yukinori Oguni to world titles. 6-When Kobayashi lost the WBC Flyweight title to Gabriel Bernal in April 1984 he was the sixth successive champion to lose the belt in his first defense. This run began in 1982, when Prudencio Cardona dethroned Antonio Avelar, and ended when Kobayashi's conqueror Gabriel Bernal notched a success defense against against Antoine Montero. 7-A rather staggering 28 of Kobasyhi's 31 bouts took place at Korakuen Hall. The ones that didn't took place in either Osaka or Fukui. 8-Rather strangely Kobayshi's final bout came on his 28th birthday! Sadly he wasn't given a birthday treat to remember as he was stopped in 7 rounds by Yoshiyuki Uchida, and decided to retire after that loss. 9-The Kadoebi Gym have a comic strip about Kobayashi on their website. The 15 part series features Kobayashi's full career among it's panels. He is one of only 3 fighters to be given this treatment by the gym, along with Den Junlaphan and Yusuke Kobori. 10-After retiring from boxing Kobayashi became a public servant
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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 Junto Nakatani to Samart Payakaroon.
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-During his career Junto Nakatani has used a track from Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi's 2007 album "Come on Stand up!" for his ring entrance. Within the credits for that album is a special thanks to former WBA Super Flyweight champion Hideki Todaka, who actually had a song on the album recorded for him, "Fighting Boxer". The link between Nagabuchi and Todaka pre-dates this 2007 album, by several years, with Todaka having used Nagabuchi's song "Hold your last chance", among others, as his own ring entrance music. 2-The first title that Hideki Todaka ever won was the Japanese Light Flyweight title, which he defended just once before vacating due to a hand injury. Another fighter who held that title was Ryo Miyazaki, who like Todaka vacated the title after just a single defense of the belt. 3-During his professional career Ryo Miyazaki suffered just 2 professional defeats. One of those was his final bout, a loss to Ryoichi Taguchi, whilst the other was a massive upset loss on December 31st 2013, when he was stopped in 3 rounds by the little known Teeraphong Utaida, aka Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr. 4-The talented Teeraphong Utaida, better known as Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr, isn't the only boxer in his family. In fact his father Thongchai Utaida, or Fahlan Sakkreerin, was also a fighter, with his career spanning from 1988 to 2005 and more than 60 professional bouts! 5-Notably Thongchai Utaida, or the original Fahlan if you will, wasn't just a busy fighter with a lot of longevity but he was also one of the first IBF Minimumweight champions. He claimed the title in 1990 and made an impressive 7 defenses of the title before being upset by Manny Melchor in 1992, ending what was the longest reign of the title up to that point in time. Another Thai fighter who has held that title was Samuth Sithnaruepol, the second IBF Minimumweight champion. 6-Thailand's Samuth Sithnaruepol is known for several things. He was, as mentioned, the second IBF Minimumweight champion, he was also the first OPBF Minimumweight champion, beating Kenji Ono for the title in 1986, and he was involved in the last 15 round world title bout, beating In Kyu Hwang in that bout. As the OPBF Minimumweight champion Samuth made 4 defenses of the belt, the first of which came on June 20th 1986. On that very same date Samart Payakaroon fought over in France, beating Rafael Gandarilla in Paris! Former Japanese Super Featherweight champion Daiki Kaneko (26-6-3, 18) was a fighter who deserved a lot more attention internationally than he got during his 12 year, 35 fight career. He was someone who consistently put in great performances and was a genuine must watch fighter with his toughness, under-rated power, and aggressive mentality. He as never a world beater, but was also never an easy out for a fighter and famously gave Takashi Uchiyama one of his toughest bouts at the end of 2013. For those who perhaps aren't too aware of Kaneko we've decided to look at him this week, for this weeks 5 Midweek Facts article. Before we get on to the facts however we'll just quickly look at Kaneko's career which saw him win the Japanese title in 2012, with a TKO win over Seiichi Okada, and defend it 4 times before facing Uchiyama in 2013. Coming into that bout Kaneko had won 13 in a row, with 10 stoppages, and was riding an unbeaten run going back more than 5 years. Despite losing to Uchiyama he did drop "KO Dynamite", and the bout won the Japanese award for the best bout of the year. Sadly however he went 6-3 after losing to Uchiyama, though those 9 bouts included fantastic contests with Jomthong Chuwatana, Masao Nakamura and Pavel Malikov, which are all worth watching and very entertaining. Following the loss to Malikov, in 2017, Kaneko hung up the gloves. With those details out of the way, lets take a look at this weeks facts! 1-In high school Kaneko was a shot putter before taking up boxing. He first entered a boxing gym in the third year of junior high school, doing so in Toyohashi, before later learning about the Yokohama Hikari Gym, which would be the gym he turned professional under. 2-The boxing bug bit Kaneko after he saw bouts featuring Takanori Hatakeyama and Joichiro Tatsuyoshi. He then spoke to his father, who was also a fan of the sport, about fighting himself. 3-Kaneko's ring entrance music was a rock song recorded by the legendary Eikichi Yazawa. The song, entitled "Tomaranai Ha ~ Ha", translates roughly as "I Can't Stop Ha Ha" and we've included a video of Yazawa performing the song at the end of the article. 4-Interestingly Kaneko shares his name with a Japanese football player, born in 1998, and a kickboxer, born in 1994. Making him one of 3 sporting Daiki Kaneko's. Whilst not a rare name it's surprisingly to see 3 sports people all with the same name in totally different fields. Also, on the subject of names, he was nicknamed "Lightning". 5-Like many Japanese fighters based in East Japan Kaneko fought most of his career at Korakuen Hall, with 30 of his 35 professional bouts taking place in the "Holy Land" of Japanese boxing. Amazingly however he fought just a single bout in the city he grew up in, Toyohashi, and that was his return bout following his 2013 loss to Takeshi Uchiyama. His other bouts outside of Korakuen Hall were an early career bout at the Nanba Grand Kagetsu, in Osaka; his bout with Uchiyama at the Ota-City General Gymnasium; a late career bout in Shizuoka; and his final bout, in Russia against Pavel Malikov. When we look back at forgotten world champions one name that seems to rarely be mentioned is Celes Kobayashi (24-5-3, 14), who fought 1992 and 2002 and won the WBA Super Flyweight title late in his career. His time at the top was short, and in fact he was a world champion for less than a year, but his career was certainly a notable one, and he continues to be involved in the sport, in a number of ways. Whilst never a "star of the sport" Kobayashi is, sadly, very much a forgotten fighter, despite winning a belt only around 20 years ago. With that in mind we've decided this week to shine a light Kobayashi and share 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Celes Kobayashi 1-Kobayashi went to the Ibaraki Prefectural Iwai Nishi High School, which was closed in 2010, when it merged with another local school in Ibaraki. Sadly he's one of the very, very few notable people from the High School. The other notables are a former Motorcycle racer and a former professional soccer player. 2-The ring name of "Celes" was taken from the company he used to work for. His real name is Shoji Kobayashi, though through his boxing career, including his post-in ring career, he has always been regarded as "Celes" 3-Former fighter Toshimi Miura, better known as Crusher Miura, served as Kobayashi's trainer at the International Boxing Sports Gym in Tokyo. Interestingly Kobayashi was the third, and final, world champion from the gym, following in the footsteps of Royal Kobayashi and Leopard Tamakuma. Unsurprisingly the other notable fighters at the gym also had interesting, and often unique, names due to the gym's policy of having fighters adopt names, typically an English word, to go along with their family name when they became a JBCranked fighter. 4-Kobayashi's ring walk music was, usually, "Anthem of the World" by Stratovarious. We've included the track at the end of this video for those wanting to give it a listen. 5-Kobayashi is one of the many fighters who lost their professional debut before winning a world title. In fact he lost 2 of his first 5 bouts, and also came up short in his first 2 Japanese title fights and his first world title fight. As a side note, his draw with Malcolm Tunacao, in his first world title fight, was reportedly down to a scoring error by Korean judge Dae Eun Chung, who scored in favour of Tunacao resulting in a split decision draw. 6-During his 32 fight career Kobayashi never fought in January. It was the only month that he never had a professional bout in. Whilst bouts are less common in January in Japan, that still appears to be a strange stat for a man who had a decade long career. 7-On a similar note to the previous fact 3 of Kobayashi's most notable bouts came in the month of March. These were his 1999 win over Hideyasu Ishihara, who was a very highly touted prospect at the time and Kobayashi's win boosted his career massively, his 2001 win over Leo Gamez to become the WBA Super Flyweight world champion, and his 2002 loss to Alexander Munoz, which saw Kobayashi lose the world title and subsequently retire from the sport aged 29. 8-In 2002 Koabayashi released an autobiography, talking about his life as a boxer and an office worker, and the following year he released a second book, this time about how to improve as a boxer. Rather surprisingly the autobiography is a very small book, at just 175 pages whilst his other book is even short, at a listed 159 pages. 9-Following his retirement from the ring Kobayashi remained at the International Gym, where he worked as a trainer and passed on his knowledge to a younger generation. That was until 2003 when he left the gym and opened up the Celes Boxing Sports Gym, the same gym that still exists to this day and is best known for having developed Ryosuke Iwasa into a world champion. 10-The Celes gym isn't the only current focus for the former champion. He also currently works as commentator for G+, doing the commentary for their Dynamic Glove series of shows. He's regarded as one of the most knowledgable men in Japanese boxing, and passes that knowledge on well with his insight as a commentator. He also contributes to the Sports Hochi as a writer and has featured in a number of "talent" activities as well We're back with another Shocker this week and it's an interesting one that often goes overlooked by fans just a decade on, yet at the time it was a huge surprise and gave one the top Flyweights of the modern era a second chance to shine at the top of the division. It was, at the time, one of the most surprising results, and is still a huge shock when we look back at the results from 2010. Date March 27th 2010 Venue Ariake Colosseum, Tokyo, Japan Fighters Koki Kameda (22-0, 14) Vs Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (74-3-1, 38) Going back just over a decade now the Kameda brothers were the big story in Japanese boxing. Daiki Kameda and Koki Kameda were two of the biggest names in Japanese boxing and their younger brother, Tomoki, was starting to generate some buzz as a fighter in Mexico. The trio were regarded as the future of Japanese boxing and Koki was really looking like a star. He was a man who had strong support in Japan and also had enough haters in the country to have fans wanting to see him get beat. He was un-Japanese in many ways. He wasn't humble and respectful, but instead a loud mouth and someone who seemingly got his attitude from professional wrestling, rather than the roots of Japanese boxing culture. At this point he was 23 years old and had seemingly found his weight, having put in a solid, if dramaless, performance to beat Daisuke Naito for the WBC Flyweight title. A title he was expected to hold until he eventually out grew the weight. Kameda's first challenge as the champion was a mandatory defense against Thai veteran Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. The Thai veteran was a legendary fighter by this point, but was assumed to be past his best. In fact at 33 and with almost 80 bouts to his name it was though he was losing to father time. He had lost the WBC title in July 2007 to Daisuke Naito and had failed to recapture the title in a rematch, their 4th bout, when the bout ended in a split decision draw. That loss to Naito had come almost 3 years before this bout and in the interim his only win of Note was an "interim"title fight against Julio Cesar Miranda. At his best Wonjongkam was something special. He was an under-rated puncher, as Malcolm Tunacao and Daisuke Naito would attest to, but also a talented boxer, who knew how to use the ring, he was smart and well schooled. At 33 years old however he was ancient for a Flyweight, and was the clear under-dog against the rising star of Japan. Not only was Wonjongkam seen as old but was also up against things, travelling to Japan for the bout. Whilst judging in Japan for bouts like is done, typically, by neutral judges, it was still assumed that the atmosphere and occasion would still sway the judges to favour the unbeaten Japanese champion. Afterall, it had happened in the past, when Kameda beat Juan Jose Landaeta for the WBA Light Flyweight title in 2006. From the off Wonjongkam pressed forward, taking center ring and being the aggressor whilst Kameda got on the back foot, circled on the outside of the ring and didn't really let his hands go much. When Kameda did open up he looked much quicker, but for much of the round seemed happy to be very conservative and negative, rather than making his youth count. There was very few in and out raids and he looked to be more focused on making Wonjongkam miss, rather than landing anything himself. The same pattern also seemed to be seen in round 2, though Kameda was certainly caught cleaner in the second than he had in the opening round and seemed to be holding on after a good single shot. Kameda seemed to be off to a bad start and he really struggled to get things going. He was much quicker, but much more timid than Wonjongkam, who was doing enough to wins rounds, without doing a lot. His 33 year old legs weren't being forced to work hard, he wasn't needing to mov through the gears nor was he ever being backed up by Kameda who used a tactic that would become rather a regular thing with him. Ultra negativity. In round 5 however Kameda did get a break, as the WBC's accidental foul rule saw Wonjongkam being deducted a point after a head clash. It was however scant consolation for Kameda who still seemed like he hadn't woken up or realised he was being out boxed by a 33 year old who seemed to be fighting a reserved fight himself. Thankfully after being cut, by the headclash in round 5, Kameda seemed to finally come awake. It was as if he was pissed off by feeling blood trickling down his face. Unfortunately Kameda really didn't keep his foot on the gas for long, and by the end of the round it was hard to give it to the local star. Kameda did however show more ambition in the middle portion of the fight, and made a legitimate attempt to swing things in his favour in rounds 7, 8 and 9. His best rounds. Amazingly after 8 rounds one of the judges some how had Kameda leading, 76-75. The other two judges had it 77-75 and 77-74 to Wonjongkam. After having a few solid rounds it seemed like Kameda was turning the bout around and, at last, making Wonjongkam work at an uncomfortable tempo. He was starting to push around the old man, who had gotten off to an early lead but was going to have to see out the second half of the bout. Amazingly however Kameda let the momentum slip away from him. Rather than keeping up the work rate he had shown after the midway point, and fighting in short but eye catching bursts, he went back to being negative and let the play slip away. It was similar to what we would become accustomed to over the years that followed from Kameda, who showed touches of genius, but lacked a champions mentality. Instead of Kameda keeping the charge going and trying to pull the bout his way, he got negative again, waiting to counter punch Wonjongkam, who because of his own low output gave Kameda very few opportunities. Kameda managed to have moments, but there was nothing sustained and a good shot from Kameda was never followed up, with Wonjongkam managed to occasionally string his shots together. Even when it was very clear Kameda needed to do a lot more, he didn't. He made no effort to turn the bout around in the championship rounds. He was happy cruising, in the hope that the judges would some how find a way to score the rounds his way. It wasn't to be. After 12 rounds we went to the scorecards. 114-114, 115-112 and 116-112. A majority decision...that went to Wonjongkam. It was the right call, even if Predrag Aleksic's even scorecard was one that left much to the imagination. The bout was never one that could have been scored even. After this bout Wonjongkam went on a solid but short second reign, beating Suriyan Sor Rungvisai, Takuya Kogawa, and Edgar Sosa before losing to Sonny Boy Jaro in 2012 before retiring in 2013. Kameda on the other hand would win WBA secondary honours at Bantamweight, becoming a "3 weight world champion" in the process, and later clash with Kohei Kono in a bout for the WBA Super Flyweight title, before retiring in 2015. Remarkably in 2018 these two men got back in ring together for an exhibition which saw Kameda beat up the then 40 year old Wonjongkam in a bout the JBC refused to sanction as a professional bout. By then however it was clear Kameda just wanted a swansong to retire for good on, whilst Wonjongkam was likely happy for an extra payday as part of an exhibition event, even if he did get knocked out. For today's "Reliving the Finish" we though we'd share quite an obscure KO from a Japanese domestic level bout from back in 2009. This is not a bout we expect many fans have seen, but the stoppage to it is worthy of being on a highlight reel. Notably it did feature a man we expect most fight fans to have heard of, and came when he was still a rising hopeful on the domestic scene. The recipient on the other hand wasn't really well known and never really did anything of note afterwards, despite continuing in ring with their career until 2013. Hisashi Amagasa (12-3-2, 10) vs Koji Nagata (7-3-3) At the end of 2014 Hisashi Amagasa's name became one of the most searched boxing names, with nobody outside of Japan really having any idea who he was when he was announced as the next challenger for Guillermo Rigondeaux. By the end of December 31st 2014 however his face was plastered everywhere on boxing websites. He looked a swollen, bloodied, beaten mess. He had twice dropped Rigondeaux but had paid the price and been left with some nasty facial injuries as a result. Following that bout he would remain a figure of interest in the wider boxing world, getting a notable fight in the UK with Josh Warrrington in 2016 before fading back into international obscurity in his homeland. For this KO we need to rewind way before all of that however and send ourselves back to May 2009. Amagasa, then aged 23, took on domestic foe Koji Nagata. At the time Amagasa was seen a long, rangy fighter with power. He had won 12 of his 17 bouts and stopped 10. Nagata on the other hand was a 24 year old who had lost on debut before reeling off a 7 fight unbeaten run. Heading into the Amagasa fight things had started to cool down again for Nagata, who had gone from 5-1-2 to 7-3-3. He lacked power, but was a capable fighter. Not a future champion, but a capable fighter all the same. Through 6 rounds Nagata had given the taller, longer Amagasa some real issues, he had held his own for the most part and even tested Amagasa's chin with some solid shots up top. Amagasa, to his credit, stayed in to the bout, and had belief in his power, but his skills, which were never great, were certainly not impressing. Nagata looked several levels above Amagasa in terms of skills, but lacked the power needed to make Amagasa really pay for his mistakes. Sadly for Nagata his good work was all undone mid way in round 7 when Amagasa landed what was probably the punch of his career. The shot was a brutal left uppercut that landed clean. The shot landed through the guard, snapping back the head of Nagata who crashed on to the canvas. The shot just turned out the lights on Nagata who stayed down for quite some time. The towel came in from his corner mid way through the count. To help Nagata a stretcher was brought into get him out of the ring safely, and thankfully there was no linger issues for him. Despite Nagata having no long term issues he wouldn't return to the ring for 9 months, defeating Tomo Kawai on his ring return. Sadly for him however his career never really took off, and he retired in 2013 with a record of 9-7-4. As for Amagsa, he would win Japanese and OPBF titles, as well as have fights with Rigondeaux and Warrington, before retiring with a 33-7-2 (21) record and later becoming a trainer at one of the gyms that Takashi Uchiyama set up.
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 WBO Bantamweight champion Ratanachai Sor Vorapin to Japanese star Junto Nakatani.
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-Thai fighter Ratanachai Sor Vorapin had an incredibly long career which spanned for over 80 bouts in total. During that time he fought a genuine list of notable fighters, including Mark Johnson, Gerry Penalosa, Yoddamrong Sithyodthong, Tim Austin, Chris John, Cruz Carbajal and Jhonny Gonzalez. His most embarrassing loss however came very late in his career against Filipino Ramie Laput in 2009, when Ratanachai was disqualified for kicking Laput! 2-Although not too well known Ramie Laput was a highly experienced fighter who fought from 1998 to 2011 and won a number of minor titles during his 48 fight career. Rather notably all but 1 of his bouts was fought in Asia, with the exception being his 2009 clash with Zsolt Bedak, which came in Austria and saw Laput being stopped in 7 rounds. 3-Several years after stopping Laput we saw Hungarian fighter Zsolt Bedak face off with another Filipino fighter, as he took on Nonito Donaire, the then WBO Bantamweight champion, in 2016 on a show in Cebu City. On that same show were several other notable Filipino fighters, including Jeo Santisima, Rocky Fuentes and Mark Magsayo, as well as international fighters like Paul Fleming and Chris Avalos. 4-American fighter Chris Avalos, who lost to Mark Magsayo on that previously mentioned Filipino show, has fought several Asian fighters during his career, not just Magsayo. Another of those was Japanese fighter Yasutaka Ishimoto, who he stopped in Macau in 2014. 5-Sadly Yasutaka Ishimoto is an often over-looked and ill-remembered fighter, though he did later win the Japanese Super Bantamweight title, winning it in 2015 when he out pointed Yusaku Kuga. He is however better known for his big upset win over former world champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, which came in Macau in 2013. On that card was the professional debut of Zou Shiming. 6-Chinese fighter Zou Shiming turned professional with a lot of hype and expectation following a very successful amateur career. Sadly however he never really set the world alight in the professional ranks, having an underwhelming career despite winning the WBO flyweight title in 2016 and becoming one of the very, very few Chinese world champion. Amazingly he was also the first Asian fighter to win the WBO Flyweight title, though the 3 that followed him have all been Japanese. They include Junto Nakatani! From 1994 to 2010 Japanese fighter Hindenobu Honda (33-8, 15) was regarded as one of the best technical fighters in Japan. Although highly skilled Honda never managed to win a world world title though he did have a successful career that saw him winning a Japanese title, twice fighting for world titles and challenging for an OPBF title.
During his 41 fight career Honda managed to face a genuine who's who of the lower weights. These included bouts with Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Alexander Munoz, Nobuo Nashiro, Alexander Bakhtin, Daigo Nakahiro, Konosuke Tomiyama and Malcolm Tunacao. In just his 10th bout Honda beat Ryuji Muramatsu for the Japanese Light Flyweight title. He would later go to make 7 defenses before moving on to his first world title fight in 2002, challenging Wonjongkam. A year later he would get his second world title fight, losing to Munoz. Following that loss Honda was never quite the same and went 7-5 (1) in his last 12 bouts, after beginning his career 26-3 (14). Soon after his 8th loss he retired, ending his career aged 35. With that small introduction out of the way, let us bring you 5 Midweek facts about Hidenobu Honda! 1-As an amateur boxer Honda ran up a record of 11-6 (1) and was the captain of his high school boxing team, at the Nissho Gakuen High School in Miyazaki City. Despite his short amateur career he managed to earn a #10 domestic ranking on the junior scene at Light Flyweight. Interestingly he also competed in Shaolin Karate whilst at high school. 2-Going back to the Nissho Gakuen High School, Honda was the second Japanese champion from the school. He had followed in the foot steps of Takeyuki Akagi, who had won the Japanese Super Featherweight title 3 times in the 1980's and 1990's. Since Honda's reign as the Japanese Flyweigth champion only one other fighter from the high school has become a Japanese champion, and that was Daishi Nagata. 3-Honda's nickname was the "Defense Master", due to his high level of defensive skills and the slippery nature of his boxing. Surprisingly he didn't have this nickname when he started the sport, but instead adopted this nickname in the late 1990's, whilst climbing up through the world rankings of both the WBA and WBC. 4-On December 23rd 2010 Honda took part in his retirement ceremony which included a spar with Malcolm Tunacao, the man who had beaten Honda in what was Honda's final professional bout. This took place on the under-card of the WBA Super Flyweight title bout between Hugo Fidel Cazares and Hiroyuki Kudaka. Rather interestingly there was a lot of big Japanese boxing names in the crowd for this, including Hiroki Ioka, Masamori Tokuyama, Nobuhiro Ishida and Ismael Salas. 5-In 2015 Honda became the Chairman of the Kanagawa Atsumi Boxing Gym, in Kanagawa. When it comes to fan friendly fighters from the past 10 years or saw few were as consistently entertaining as former 2-time WBA Super Flyweight champion Kohei Kono (33-12-1, 14), who not only excited fans but also proved that records are for DJ's. Despite ending his career with 12 losses Kono was a 2-time world champion, spent the better part of a decade in the Ring Magazine divisional rankings, competed in 10 world title fights and scored notable wins against the likes of Tepparith Kokietgym, Denkaosan Kaovichit and Koki Kameda.
During a career that ran from 2000 to 2018 Kono achieved an incredible amount, He was the East Japan Rookie of the Year winner, a Japanese champion, a 2-time OPBF champion and a 2-time WBA champion. He faced a genuine who's who, including Nobuo Nashiro, Tomas Rojas, Yota Sato, Tepparith Kokietgym, Liborio Solis, Denkaosan Kaovichit, Koki Kameda, Luis Concepcion, Naoya Inoue and Jason Moloney. He also put on thrillers, not just with some of those guys but also fighters like Teppei Kikui, with the third bout between Kono and Kikui being something really special. Rather than talking about the obvious, Kono being exciting, we're here today to shine a light on more of Kono's life and career as we share 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Kohei Kono 1-Prior to turning to boxing Kono was interested in track and field, and had actually been part of the track and field club at high school. He switched to boxing after he began to read a book entitled "Become a professional boxer in 6 months". He would later begin boxing at the Watanabe gym in 1999 under the tutelage of Tomoaki Takahashi. 2-Unlike most world champion's Kono's amateur record is not a good one. In fact it's widely reported that he went 2-2 in the unpaid ranks, before turning professional in 2000. 3-Similarly Kono is also among the rather small number of world champions who lost on debut, losing a 4 round decision to Yoshiaki Nitta on November 22nd 2000, in what was an all debutant bout. Following this loss Kono's father changed his views on boxing, and went from not wanting to see his son fighting to positively helping Kohei train, and turned his living room into a practice area. 4-In regards to his professional debut, it came on November 22nd 2000, just a single day before Kono's 20th birthday! Rather oddly it was one of just 3 bouts he had during the month of November. The other's were in 2002 and 2003. 5- In 2013 Kono, alongside Tadashi Yuba, appeared in the music video for Kavka Shishido's track "Kiken na Futari". The two boxers featured in an under-ground fight in the video. The track it's self broke into the top 65 in the Japanese Oricon Singles chart 6-Kono was reportedly very shrewd with money and it wad reported that his living costs, in 2013 and early 2014 was between 20,000 and 30,000 Yen a month. This would have been around $200 to $300 at the time. Kono's then promoter Hitoshi Watanabe explained that Kono doesn't drink alcohol, didn't eat out, and was able to live off just his boxing income at the time. This essentially allowed him to focus on his boxing career, and he gave up the part time job he had had when he won the Japanese national title in 2007. 7-Kono was given two different nicknames, for very different reasons. The most famous of those was "Tough Boy", due to his incredible toughness and durability through his career. The other much less well known, was the "Japanese Pacquiao", which he seemingly adopted for a short time in 2015 after a short training camp with Freddie Roach. The nickname came from his similar looks to Pacquiao and was something he was called by a female employee at a duty free shop when he arrived back home in Japan. Sadly the "Japanese Pacquiao" moniker seemed to be a very, very short lived one. 8- Incidentally Kono was also mistaken for Pacquiao at one of the WBA's General Assembly's, with the two looking incredibly similar at the time. 9-On October 7th 2015 Kono got married. Interestingly his wife was the daughter of well known Japanese folk singer Minami Rambo. 10-When he retired in 2018 he held a press conference with Hitoshi Watanabe and revealed a few interesting details about his career and what he was hoping to do after boxing. During this press conference he explained the best moment of his career was his with Tepparith Kokietgym, the most exciting was his bout with Koki Kameda and that he was planning to take over the Gaienmae Chiropractic Center, which is run by his father. Bonus fact - 1 - It's often been reported that had Kono lost in his December 2012 bout with Tepparith Kokietgym he would have retired from boxing. 2 - Kono's bout with Koki Kameda is the first, and so far only, time we've had an all-Japanese world title bout on US soil. This was because Kameda, at the time, was unable to secure a license to fight in Japan and was the WBA mandatory for Kono, forcing the bout to be held on neutral territory for both men. 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 Toshiyuki Igarashi to former WBO Bantamweight champion Ratanachai Sor Vorapin.
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-Japan's Toshiyuki Igarashi is pretty well known in interesting boxing circles due to his short reign as the WBC and Linear Flyweight champion between 2012 and 2013, which saw him win the title from Sonny Boy and lose the belt to Akira Yaegashi. Prior to winning the WBC title he has been the Japanese Flyweight champion and the Japanese "interim" champion. In fact he's one of only 3 fighters to have won the "interim" and "regular" version of the Japanese Flyweight title, along with Kenji Yoshida and Masayuki Kuroda. 2-During his long career Masayuki Kuroda has fought for world titles several times, losing to both Juan Carlos Reveco and Moruti Mthalane. Whilst those bouts are somewhat well known to international fans, given they were world title bouts, what is often over-looked is the fact Kuroda also the "opponent" for Naoya Inoue's pro-test bout, the sparring style bout that Japanese fighters have before being able to get a professional license. 3-After getting his professional license Naoya Inoue was raced through the professional ranks, winning the Japanese Light Flyweight title in his 4th bout, the OPBF title in his 5th bout an the WBC title in his 6th bout. We suspect most fans will be aware that he beat Ryoichi Taguchi for the Japanese title and Adrian Hernandez for the WBC title, who were both world class fighters. Less well known is the man he beat for the OPBF title, Filipino fighter Jerson Mancio. 4-Although not massively well known Jerson Mancio did fight several notable fighters during his career, not just the "Monster", another was Marlon Tapales, who actually gave Mancio his first professional loss way back in 2009, more than 4 years before his loss to Inoue. 5-Although never a massive name in the sport Marlon Tapales was an under-rated fighter in his pomp and was often over-looked. Despite that he managed to record several big wins during his career, including stoppage wins over the then touted Shohei Omori and an excellent win in Thailand against Punglang Sor Singyu, to win the WBO Bantamweight title. 6-As we write this Pungluang Sor Singyu is the only 2-time WBO Bantamweight champion in history, a rather striking little fact. He is also one of only 2 Thai's to have ever won the title with the only other Thai being Ratanachai Sor Vorapin, who held the title from 2004 to 2005! |
Thinking Out East
With this site being pretty successful so far we've decided to open up about our own views and start what could be considered effectively an editorial style opinion column dubbed "Thinking Out East" (T.O.E). Archives
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