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We're in the middle of another week and it gives us another chance to shine a light on one of the many forgotten figures of Asian boxing. This time we're going to look at former 3-time world title challenger Yuichi Kasai.
Although not too well known in the West Kasai was a major figure in the Super Bantamweight division. He won the Japanese and OPBF titles and challenged 3 times for the WBA title, losing to Wilfredo Vazquez in 1994 and Antonio Cermeno, in 1996 and 1997. Despite finishing his career in 1997 Kasai has remained a notable figure in Japanese boxing, though has essentially left professional to focus on other things in recent years. With that all said, let us bring you 5 Midweek Facts about Yuichi Kasai. 1-As an amateur Kasai amassed a fantastic record of 44-4 (24) and was runner up in the 1987 National Sports competition and the winner of the 1987 High School Championship. 2-Kasai went to the same high school, and was in the same year as, fellow fighter Koji Matsumoto. Interestingly they both went to the same university, both dropped out in the same and both went on to become not only world title challengers but also top trainers. 3-Given the reputation of Japanese fighters not fighting away from home it's worth noting that 9 of Kasai's 29 professional bouts took place outside of Japan. These included 7 bouts in the US and 2 bouts in Venezuela. During those 7 bouts he went 5-2, losing in Venezuela to Ramon Guzman and in the US to Antonio Cermeno, who also travelled to Japan and beat Kasai in what was Kasai's final bout. 4-After retiring from in ring competition Kasai became a trainer at the Teiken gym, where he went on to receive the Eddie Townsend Award, essentially the Japanese Trainer of the Year award. During his time at Teiken he trained the likes of Toshiaki Nishioka, Takashi Miura, Toshiyuki Igarashi and Akifumi Shimoda. Incidentally Koji Matsumoto also won the Eddie Townsend award, though did it as a trainer at the Ohashi Gym. 5-In 2017 Kasai left his role as a trainer at Teiken and set up his own gym, the GLOVES gym. The gym is a boxing fitness gym, and encourages people to get healthy through community based boxing activities, promotes boxing the wonders of boxing, and welcomes everyone, regardless of age and gender.
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Last week we spoke about Korean fighter Young Kyun Park in this series, and this week we'll discuss a man he fought, Koji Matsumoto (26-6-1, 15). Although he never became a world champion Matsumoto is an interesting individual who challenged for world titles in the 1990's, and then retired but remained a notable figure within the sport. Even now he's someone who continues to cultivate talent within Japan and is very highly regarded within the sport.
Of course this series is the 10 facts you probably didn't know about..., series and today we bring you 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Koji Matsumoto, someone you really should get to know, as his role in boxing isn't going to end any time soon. 1-Matsumoto is a second generation fighter. His father, Hiroshi Matusmoto was himself a semi-successful fighter who won the East Japan Rookie of the Year at Welterweight in 1957. Hiroshi's full record isn't available on Boxrec but the excellent http://fanblogs.jp/boxingmeikan report that Matsumoto senior went 6-4 (2). 2-As an amateur Matsumoto racked up a 37-6 (21) record. 3-Matsumoto went to the same high school and University as Yuichi Kasai, himself a former fighter. In fact they both dropped out of University and debuted in the same year. Both have now gone on to have very well respected careers as trainer after losing in 3 world title bouts. The two are close friends and Matsumoto has helped out at Kasai's GLOVES gym in Tokyo. 4-Matsumoto boxed out of the legendary Yonekura Gym. For those who don't follow the Japanese gym scene, that's the same gym that brought us world champions like Kuniaki Shibata, Guts Ishimatsu, Shigeo Nakajima, Hideyuki Ohashi and Hiroshi Kawashima. 5-After losing to Young Kyun Park, in a WBA Featherweight world title bout, the two men developed a solid friendship, and Park has been over to Japan in recent years to see bouts on the invitation of Matsumoto. Park revealed that Matsumoto treats him like a brother and is the only fighter he fought who is still in contact with him. 6-More than half of Matsumoto's career was spent in title bouts. He fought 33 professional bouts with 17 title contests. They included 3 world title bouts, 1 OPBF title bout and 13 bouts for the Japanese Featherweight title. His overall record in these bouts was 12-5. 7-Since retiring from in ring participation Matsumoto has become a trainer at the Ohashi Gym, linking up with former Yonekura Gym mate Hideyuki Ohashi. Since being a trainer he has worked heavily with Akira Yaegashi, Satoshi Hosono and Katsushige Kawashima. 8-In 2004 Matsumoto won the Eddie Townsend award for his work as a trainer. At the time he was the youngest trainer to win the award. 9-Matsumoto has released two DVD's, which are available on Amazon.jp. They are focused on training in boxing, as opposed to some of the fitness DVD's released. Interestingly fellow Yonekura gym fighter Hiroshi Kawashima has also released his own boxing DVD, with his focused on defense. 10-The Matsumoto boxing name is set to continue with a third generation fighter, as Koji's son Keisuke Matsumoto turned professional in 2020, joining the Ohashi Gym where he will continue to be trained by Koji. One of the best things about boxing is just how well hidden and even forgotten some things are. Today we have a great example of that in this edition of "Remarkable Rounds" which comes from the early 1980's. The bout is not one that we suspect many fans will have seen but every single fight fans owes it to themselves to watch, and then watch again. It’s less than a full 3 minutes, but it has more drama, action and twists than many 12 round bouts. Isaya Ikhoni (4-1, 4) vs Hiroshi Osumi (4-4-1, 4) Before we discuss the round we do need to introduce the two men involved in it. In one corner was Japanese based Kenyan Isaya Ikhoni, then fighting as Yonekura Ikhoni after taking the Yonekura name from the gym he was fighting out of. Prior to turning professional Ikhoni had been a successful amateur, with reportedly over 100 bouts and upon turning professional he looked really good. By just his third bout he was fighting in 10 rounds, and raced out to 4-0 (4) in just over 6 months as a professional. He was then beaten by Hikaru Tomonari and the loss seemed like a real setback for him. To rebuild his confidence he went in with the limited Hiroshi Osumi. Sporting a 4-4-1 record Osumi wasn’t a particularly good boxer, but he was a solid fighter, with fight changing power. He was crude, but if, and when he landed he could really mess people up. Despite his 4 losses it’s worth noting that 3 of those had come to Cheyenna Yamamoto, a future Japanese national champion and his draw had come to Masaharu Owada, another future Japanese champion. He had only been stopped once in his 4 losses coming into this, and that was against Cheyenne Yamamoto, in 6 rounds in their third bout, and he went in against Ikhoni with the intention of upsetting the talented Kenyan. From the very first seconds Osumi was pressing forward whilst Ikhoni was looking to box and move. Within 30 seconds we saw the first knockdown and it was a big one as a huge overhand right from Osumi dropped Ikhoni. Ikhoni got to his feet quickly but the Kenyan seemed to be in all sorts of trouble when Osumi waded in and the referee gave Ikhoni a standing count. The bout could have been stopped after the knockdown, it could have been stopped when the referee decided to give Ikhoni a standing count. It could also have been stopped soon afterwards as Osumi started to ragdoll his man around the ring. Ikhoni there to be taken out and Osumi knew it as he pursued his man. Ikhoni held, spoiled, tried to clear his head, slipped and ducked and did all he could to try and see out the aggressive charge of Osumi. He was then hurt again and decided his best plan was to fight fire with fire. After a huge flurry from Ikhoni we had the third knockdown of the fight, with Osumi hitting the canvas. He tried to get to his feet, and he tried to continue, but he couldn’t and he ended up being counted out after just over 2 minutes of the round. This was chaos. This was thrilling. This was a remarkable round and this is worth every second of your time to watch. A truly brilliant 1 round shootout. When we typically do these "What a Shock" articles we look at upsets scored by Asian fighters. Today we flip that on it's head and look at a big betting upset in 2018 against an Asian fighter. On paper the bout is perhaps not remembered as much of an upset but in regards to the betting this was a genuine surprise and one that sent the loser in to retirement. Date August 17th 2018 Venue Fantasy Springs Casino, Indio, California, USA Yoshihiro Kamegai (27-4-2, 24) Vs Greg Vendetti (19-2-1, 12) We're going to begin this by saying that the bookies can get it wrong, really wrong. That appears to have been the case in August 2018 when Japanese veteran Yoshihiro Kamegai was priced as 2/9 favourite with the UK bookies to beat American Greg "The Villain" Vendetti, who was a 3/1 under-dog. Of course of the two fighters Kamegai is the more well known, even in the US. He is well known as a fan favourite due to his thrilling action bouts and his wars. His fights against the likes of Robert Guerrero, Jesus Soto Karass and Miguel Cotto were were all enjoyable fights that saw Kamegai take significant punishment but never stop coming forward and never stop trying to fight. His limitations were always clear, and he had slow clumsy footwork, awkward technique, open defense, but he more than made up for that with his incredible chin, work rate and will to win. By August 2018 Kamegai had been out of the ring for a year, following injuries, but was still expected to have too much in the tank for the somewhat unknown Greg Vendetti. Whilst Kamegai had been mixing in and around world level for a while Vendetti was mostly beating fighters with losing records. His most notable wins were against Ayi Bruce and a razor thin win over Khiary Gray, both in 2017. He had done nothing of note, and looked like a fighter who would look nice on Kamegai's record, with there being much substance behind it. Sadly for Kamegai no one told him that Vendetti didn't want to play the part of the easy comeback opponent. Instead Vendetti wanted saw Kamegai as a chance to build his own name. This was a huge step up for Vendetti, his first bout on TV, and his first bout in front of a major market. From the opening round both men looked hungry but it didn't take long for the extra speed and youth of Vendetti to shine through. He seemed much quicker than the 3 year old Kamegai, who marched forward but struggled to land much of value. Up close Vendetti wasn't just landing good shots, but also also tying up Kamegai, smothering the Japanese veteran and preventing Kamegai from letting his hands fly with much consistency. Round by round Vendetti would out work Kamegai in the pocket, landing not just a significantly higher number than the Japanese fighter, but also landing the shots cleaner in what was a brilliant little inside war. It seemed like Kamegai was the heavier hitter, but struggled to get his shots go at the same volume as Vendetti. Sadly for Kamegai as the rounds went on he began to look his age. The energy we had seen him show against the likes of Jesus Soto Karass just wasn't there. A hard career, injuries and being 35 years old had began to catch up with him. He was never looking hurt, it would likely have taken Vendetti a baseball bat to have hurt Kamegai, but he was looking like a man on the slide, despite a solid round 4. It was a case that he simply couldn't keep it up as he had earlier in his career. The phone booth action was great for fans of hard hitting wars, but by the end of the 10th round there was only one winner. Kamegai had had moments, he had had some good rounds, but they were only short lived success, and there really was no way the judges could give the bout to the pre-fight favourite. Instead the judges got it right, scoring the bout 97-93 and 98-92, twice, to Vendetti, who made the most of his big opportunity. Kamegai wouldn't fight after this, retiring in November 2018 and explaining that he wasn't the fighter he had once been. As for Vendetti he would lose to Michel Soro less than 4 months after this win, but did rediscover his form after that and, at the time of writing, he is still an active fighter. Sadly though the win over Kamegai is his biggest win, by some distance. The sport has a lot of different type's of KO's, but it's fair to say that one of the favourites for fans is where the recipient face plants the ring. For whatever reason they always look extra brutal, vicious and nasty. When a fighter goes down face first it rarely matters how they were sent down we can be pretty sure they aren't beating the counting. Today we get to share a rather obscure face first KO from 2003 that we don't think many in the West will have seen, but it's a brutal finish and deserves to be seen by all. Masakazu Satake (18-2-4, 11) vs Richard Reina (10-0, 9) By October 2003 Japanese fighter Masakazu Satake was edging towards a big bout. The Light Welterweight had recorded 9 defenses of the OPBF title, and had, just a fight earlier, scored an eye catching win over Filipino fighter Dindo Castanares, which we covered recently in this series. He seemed within touching distance of his US debut but still had a job to do and couldn't afford to see his momentum drop so close to a big fight. Looking to derail Satake's rise was unbeaten Venezuelan puncher Richard Reina, who had taken out former Satake opponent Dindo Castanares in just 2 rounds 3 months before facing Satake. Although still a relative novicee Reina was regarded as a promising fighter, who had scored 9 straight stoppages, taken the Venezuelan title, and had blasted 6 opponents out in the opening round. Not only had Reina been racking up wins in Venezuela but he'd also scored wins in Colombia and Japan. The first round of the fight was a relatively quiet one, though there was a point mid way through where Reina caught Satake and seemed to make the Japanese fighter fully aware that he was dangerous. Satake did however box well through the round, fought smartly and used his foot work to avoid too many exchanges with the hard hitting visitor. In round 2 we again saw Reina on the front foot, throwing calculated bombs whilst Satake boxed and moved picked his spots and showed real respect of Reina's power. That was until late in the round when Satake managed to rock Reina, who seemed to look for a breather on the ropes. Satake sensed something and applied pressure before luring Reina to throw a right hand, and drop his guard. Almost instantly Satake came back with a right hand of his own, right on the chin. Instantly the lights turned off and Reina crashed against the canvas falling face down in brilliant catching fashion. Sadly for Satake he would go 1-2 after this fight before hanging up the gloves following a loss to Jung Bum Kim. Reina on the other hand would go 2-3 before retiring with a 12-4 (11) record, never looking the same after this brutal KO loss. 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 Mongolian hopeful Tugstsogt Nyambayar to former 2-time IBF Minimumweight world champion Ratanapol 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-Talented Mongolian Tugstsogt Nyambayar made his professional debut in March 2015, stopping Gabriel Braxton on a card in Ontario, California. On the same card as Nyambayar's debut was a bout featuring Mexican fighter Miguel Vazquez, who defeated Jerry Belmontes with a 10 round decision. 2-Years before beating Belmontes the talented, slippery, and criminally under-rated, Miguel Vazquez won the IBF Lightweight title, with that title win coming way back in 2010 when he defeat Korean slugger Ji Hoon Kim. At the time Kim was making his mark as a talented and exciting fighter, with a string of KO's but he lacked the skills needed against the brilliant "Titere". 3-Just 2 bouts after losing to Vazquez the heavy handed Ji Hoon Kim won the Korean Lightweight title, taking a razor thin split decision over the previously unbeaten Dong Hyuk Kim. This win ended a 2 fight losing streak for Kim, with the loss to Vazquez being followed by a loss to Leonardo Zappavigna. 4-Following his loss to Ji Hoon Kim we saw Dong Hyuk Kim drop down in weight and have success at Super Featherweight. He first won the South Korean national title there, beating Sung Tae Kim, before moving up a level and beating Ronald Pontillas to claim the OPBF title. That title had also been held by Japan's Takashi Uchiyama, who had managed 5 defenses of the belt before winning the WBA world title. 5-The hard hitting Takashi Uchiyama enjoyed major success in his career, where he became the face of the Watanabe Gym. During his long and lengthy reign as the WBA Super Featherweight champion he helped make the gym what it is, and helped make it an attractive proposition for emerging hopefuls and prospects. One of those men who followed in his footsteps, joining the Watanabe gym and becoming a world champion, was Hiroto Kyoguchi, who has since become the newest face of the gym thanks to his rise through the ranks and in ring success. 6-The first world title won by Hiroto Kyoguchi was the IBF Minmumweight title. He made 2 defenses of the title before before he moved up and became a 2-weight champion. Another man who held the IBF Minimumweight title, twice in fact, was Thailand's Ratanapol Sor Vorapin, who damn near monopolised the title in the 1990's during his 2 reigns, and 18 combined defenses between 1992 and 1997 Whilst doing some research for something else back in 2020 we stumbled on Shigeji Kaneko's name and after a little bit of research on Kaneko we decided, one day, that we would look into his career and life and try to shine a light on him. Whilst it's taken us a while to do that, we're glad to finally talk about Kaneko, at long last.
Although not a big name Kaneko was a notable fighter in the 1950's, fighting from 1950 to 1958. During that time he amassed a very impressive 51-10-1 (31) record, had scored a number of big wins and was very much a key Featherweight player of the era. He never fought for a world title, but did share the ring with several legends of the sport. With that introduction out of the way, let us bring you the latest in the 5 Midweek Facts series by looking at Shigeji Kaneko, and his life and career! 1-Kaneko's nickname was the fantastic "Enchanted puncher" 2-As a fighter Kaneko was genuinely a distinguished boxer. He not only won the OPBF Featherweight title, becoming the first Japanese fighter to win an OPBF title, but also won the Distinguished Prize award in 1953, the Fighting Spirit Award in 1954 and was a 2-time Japanese Best Fighter award winner, in 1955 and 1956. Impressively he proved his ability against legendary Filipino Flash Elorde, going 4-0 against Elorde. In 2003 was honoured in the Philippines by being awarded the Gabriel "Flash" Elorde Memorial Trophy. 3-Sadly Kaneko's career to an end when he was only 27. That was due to a retinal detachment that forced him to leave the sport following a win over Saburo Otaki in November 1958. 4-Following his retirement from in ring activity Kaneko worked as a trainer before opening up the Kaneko gym, which is still running today. The gym was passed on to his eldest sons in 2004, with one son being the chairman and another being a manager and trainer. Early on the gym was best known for guiding Eijiro Murata to 4 world title fights, and would also guide the likes of Kevin Palmer and Kenji Iwata. In recent years it's also been the gym in charge of Hidenori Otake in recent years. 5-Kaneko passed away in early 2016. Whilst it's reported in the West that his death was down to pneumonia it seems likely that his pneumonia was caused by progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), which is what Japanese news sources reported was his cause of death. When we talk about must watch fighters few could rival Korean Featherweight Young Kyun Park (28-3-1, 16), who reached the top of the sport in the early 1990's. Park isn't a name that comes up often in conversation but in reality it probably should as he was one of the most exciting fighters from the early 1990's.
After winning the WBA Featherweight title in 1991, ending the long reign of Antonio Esparragoza, the Korean went on a tear before losing the belt in 1993, with one of the busiest reigns in the division's history. He sadly never fought outside of his homeland, limiting the memory international boxing fans have of him, but at home he was a star and one of the final Korean fighters to really catch the public's attention at home. Known for his incredible toughness and stamina Park's fights were battles. He wasn't the most polished of boxers but more than made up for that in his will to win, energy and aggression. To try and help fans get to know Park we've put together 10 facts you probably didn't know about... Yong Kyun Park 1-On December 28th 1986 Park won the Korean Rookie of the Year at Featherweight, with his win over Kyong-Mo Chung. Whilst that's pretty impressive by it's self, it was his 5th fight in just 19 days! He had fought on December 9th, 12th, 14th and 21st before beating Chung for the Korean Rookie of the Year crown. 2-In a 2018 interview Park stated that for his bout with Yung-Duk Park he had insufficient time to train. At the time he has serving military service and the weight cut was particularly difficult as a result, needing to cut almost 14.5KG's (almost 32lbs) to make weight for the bout. He also explained he had similar issues for his bout with Jae Won Choi, in which he suffered his sole loss at domestic level. That time he had to lose 10KG's (around 22lbs) and it took away from his performance as a result. 3-Due to his in ring style Park was nicknamed the "Bulldozer" 4-According to one Korean news source Park's favourite fighter was Tae Il Chang, a former Super Flyweight champion. 5-When he won the WBA Featherweight title became the second Hyundai Promotions fighter to win a world title, following Hi-Yong Choi who won the WBA Minimumweight title just weeks earlier. Interestingly the promotional company had been set up in 1981 and had both of it's world champions crowned in early 1991. 6-In 1992 the Korean press reported that Park was offered a world title unification bout to face the then WBC champion Paul Hodkinson of England. At the time Park was supposed to be lining up a bout with American Kevin Kelley. Sadly neither of those bouts came to fruition, and Hodkinson lost his title in 1993. If either of those bouts had occurred Park would have been a bigger name internationally. Win or lose. 7-In March 1991 Park ended the 1485 day reign of Antonio Esparragoza as the WBA Featherweight champion. During Esparragoza long reign, one of the longest in the title's history, he made just 7 defenses, essentially one every 212 days. Kyun managed to rack in 8 defenses in just 980 days, once every 122.5 days, before losing the belt to Eloy Rojas. 8-Park is good friends with former opponent Koji Matsumoto, who he stopped in 11 rounds to retain the WBA Featherweight title. This relationship saw Park attend the a Japanese card in late 2017 headlined be Naoya Inoue, and suggest he wanted to help train Matsumoto's son Keisuke Matsumoto. It's likely also this relationship that has helped secure a number of Korean fights sparring opportunities with Ohashi Gym fighters, as Koji Matsumoto is one of the lead trainers now at the Ohashi Gym. Park has stated that Matsumoto treats him like a brother and that he's the only former opponent he's in regular contact with 9-After retiring from the sport Park turned to business, at one point he was running a restaurant. 10-In 2018 Korean boxing introduced the "Bulldozer Prize", essentially an award that took Park's nickname. The physical award was a plaque that featured 24K gold. Extra fact - Park got into boxing as a child when a school friend was bruised after a fight and a teacher spoke to his friend about becoming a boxer. The seeds were planted there and then, with the words embedding in his head. He would later get some gloves and spar before joining a gym in high school and training to box. 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 champion Katsuya Onizuka to Mongolian contender Tugstsogt Nyambayar.
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-Former WBA Super Flyweight champion Katsuya Onizuka was one of the faces of Japanese boxing in the first half of the 1990's. Back in May 1989, when Onizuka was climbing through the domestic ranks, he was one of the main supporting bouts on the same card that Biney Martin made his professional debut on. Both men scored wins, with Onizuka stopping Masao Kawanishi and Martin taking a decision over Hiroshi Kumagai. 2-In recent years Biney Martin has turned from being a fighter in the ring to being one of the most recognisable officials in Japan, and is regularly seen as a referee across all levels of Japanese boxing. By going from in ring fighter to referee he has followed in the footsteps of the legendary Ken Morita, arguably the most famous Japanese referee the sport has had. 3-As an official Ken Morita was involved in at least 5 bouts featuring the once touted Takao Sakurai. Although it's unclear how many of Sakurai's bouts Morita worked what is known is that Sakurai went unbeaten in bouts Morita worked of his, and there was at least 3 where Morita was the referee an at least 2 where he was a judge. 4-Before turning professional Takao Sakurai had secured his place in history, by being the first Japanese boxer to ever win an Olympic Gold medal. He did that by winning Gold at Bantamweight in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Some 48 years later Britain's Luke Campbell took home the Bantamweight Gold medal whilst boxing in the London Olympics. This means both men won Gold in the same division in the Olympics that took place in their home nation! 5-Talking about Luke Campbell's Olympic success in 2012 he actually beat Japan's Satoshi Shimizu on route to that Gold medal, beating Shimizu 20-11 in the semi-final. This saw Campbell progress to the final, where he won and took Gold, and left Shimizu with a Bronze medal, making him the first Japanese boxer to pick up an Olympic medal since Eiji Morioka in 1968! 6-Of course top amateurs prove themselves outside of the Olympics and Satoshi Shimizu did just that by picking up numerous medals away from the Olympics. Among those was a Bronze medal at the 2009 Asian Championships in Zhuhai, China. Another fighter who won Bronze at the same Asian Championships was Mongolian fighter Tugstsogt Nyambayar. The sport of boxing has a lot of forgotten fighters. We suspect that any fight fan can come up with a list of fighters they feel were forgotten despite either achieving a surprising amount or promised a lot and failed to reach the heights expected of them.
One fighter who certainly fits into that "Forgotten Fighters" tag is Koki Ishii (12-2-1, 7), who fought as a Flyweight in the late 1970's and early 1980's. He had 15 fights in the professional but the expectations on his shoulders when he turned professional were huge and he was matched like a super stud due to those expectations. The fast track lead to him challenging WBC Super Flyweight champion Chul Ho Kim in 1982, in Korea, but losing in 8 rounds before ending his career in 1983. Sadly Ishii isn't a name you see mentioned a lot, but his potential to be a star was huge and he is in the conversation as one of the best Japanese fighters to never win any kind of title. We're not here today for a full career break down, but instead to bring 5 midweek facts about Koki Ishii. 1-Ishii's father was a US soldier, his mother was Japanese. 2-As an amateur Ishii went a reported 57-8 (29) and was seen as a very special talent. He as a multi-time Japanese national champion but his biggest amateur achievement was winning bronze at the 1978 World Championship's in Belgrade. Due to his amateur talent he was regarded as a real hopeful for the 1980's Olympics. Amazingly Ishii's medal at the 1978 World Championship's was Japan's only medal World Championships until Masatsugu Kawachi won bronze at the 2007 Championships. 3-Sadly Ishii's Olympic dreams were ended due to financial issues. Rather than remain in the unpaid ranks he turned professional in 1979 due to the need to have financial security. It's been reported in Japan that Ishii's mother was ill and later passed away, forcing Ishii to help look after his brothers and needed the money to help support himself and brothers. 4-Unlike most prospects in Japan Ishii actually made his debut in an 8 round bout. After his debut all of his other bouts were scheduled for either 10 or 15 rounds, a real oddity in professional boxing. 5-Although Ishii never won a title, losing in a world title fight and twice failing to win in challenged for a Japanese title, he did score wins over reigning OPBF and Japanese Flyweight champions early in his career, both in non-title bouts. In his 5th professional bout he stopped the then Japanese Flyweight champion Kazumasa Tamaki, who had defended the belt twice. In his 7th bout Ishii took a decision over OPBF Flyweight champion Hong Soo Yang, who had also defended his belt twice. |
Thinking Out East
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