On August 4th we saw an all debutant Lightweight contest between 20 year old southpaw Takahiro Shinoda and and 29 year old Hayato Shimosakoda. What few would have expected was for one man to totally rip the other one apart in a very, very one sided contest that take the win to the Western and Central Japan Rookie of the Year final.

We won't spoil the bout other than to say it was short and very 1-sided considering both men were debutants.

World title bouts can vary massively in their quality and range from opening round blow outs in complete mismatches to very competitive 12 round battles between similarly talented fighters. The recent WBC Bantamweight title fight between Japan's Shinsuke Yamanaka and Thailand's Suriyan Sor Rungvisai, the mandatory challenger to the title.

We won't ruin the bout, for those who haven't seen it, but it did turn out to be a very good contest with a lovely clash of styles, a determined challenger and a competent champion. The bout may not have been action packed or a FOTY contender but it was a very contest and one we thoroughly enjoyed, we hope you do to!

(Video courtesy of ทีเคโอ มวยโลก)

When dynamite punchers collide we tend to expect excitement, especially when the fighters are at, or around, the same level. Sometimes that excitement is delivered almost from the off as the two guys trade away from the opening bell. Sometimes however we need to wait for one, or both, of the men to get into their groove, and feel comfortable of winning if a shoot out breaks out.

We had one such contest back in October 2012 when Satoshi Hosono, boasting 16 KO from 22 wins, took on Rikiya Fukuhara, a man with 19 stoppages from 26 wins and although the bout wasn't actually a Japanese title fight both men were, previously, domestic title holders. The fight didn't start like a petrol doused house with a lighter near by but it did see both men letting their hands go, especially in round 3 as we had thrilling back and forth action.

For what it's these two men were supposed to fight a rematch, for the Japanese Featherweight title earlier this year, before Fukuhara suffered an injury. We suspect that that rematch could take place in 2015 and if it does we'll be expecting fireworks. Interestingly both men are unbeaten since this bout.

A notable fact to just add here, before you watch the fight, was that this show also featured the professional debut of Japanese "Monster" Naoya Inoue who scored a 4th round victory over Filipino Crison Omayao to begin his insanely quick rise through the ranks.

(Video courtesy of gentidori)

Earlier today it was reported by a number of sources that Japanese Super Bantamweight Hidenori Otake would be challenging WBO world champion Scott Quigg. Our Japanese expect has expressed doubt about the bout but he has also managed to hunt down some footage of Otake for those who wants to see him in action.

This bout, from July 2011, was Otake's last stoppage victory and saw him defeating the limited, light hitting and very stoppable Yuji Maruyama.

Going into this bout Maruyama was 11-10-1 (1) having been stopped 4 times in his 22 bout career whilst Otake was 15-1-3 (8) and regarded as a rising contender on the domestic scene courtesy of his great engine, exciting style and the run he was on, which included 5 stoppages in his previous 6 bouts.

Whilst this fight is more than 3 years old it is worth noting that Otake won the Japanese title just 2 fights later before making 4 defenses of the belt, so in some respect it is a relatively recent contest.

(Video courtesy of rutorarutora)

In the recent WBA world rankings we've spotted the name of Japanese 21 year old Minimumweight Takumi Sakae. It's been hard to understand why the WBA have got Sakae in the world rankings considering the people he has beaten but we've got to admit we do like what we have seen of him, notably his 2013 All Japan Rookie of the Year win over Yoshinori Wakahara.

The fight didn't convince us that Sakae was going to be a future wold champion but from what we saw we do have the opinion that he's going to be be fun to follow however far he goes. We hope you enjoy this one.

(Video courtesy of gentidori)

At the beginning of this year it was only the hardcore and the Thai fans who knew the name "Amnat Ruenroeng". By the end of the year however almost every actual fan of the sport will know it after he became the IBF Flyweight champion and made defenses against both Kazuto Ioka, a split decision win in Japan, and McWilliams Arroyo, a very close decision in Thailand. 

Whilst it's those defenses that have allowed Amnat to have his name mentioned in the Fighter of the Year conversations it does need to be noted that another stand out win was his title win, a very hard fought decision over Filipino road warrior Rocky Fuentes, another very good win on paper.

What's worth not particularly about this contest was that Amnat didn't cope well with the pressure in a number of middle rounds though showed his talent late to pull it out of the bag. It's also worth nothing that Fuentes will be challenging Roman Gonzalez later this year in what will give us a chance to compare Ruenroeng to Gonzalez. Sadly we suspect that could be another loss for the under-rated Fuentes.

If we can say just 1 thing about 2014 it's that the year hasn't been a good one for Asian fighters at 105lbs. We've seen Xiong Zhao Zhong lose the WBC belt to Oswaldo Novoa in an unexpectedly 1-sided beat down, we've seen Merlito Sabillo get beaten up by Francisco Rodriguez Jr and we've seen Rodriguez Jr also defeat Katsunari Takayama. It's fair to say if you're an Asian fighter in Minimumweight the year is one you'll want to forget, well unless you're Kosei Tanaka who appears to be on the verge of a break out year.

Another Asian to have a set back in 2014 was Thai veteran Pigmy Kokietgym who was easily seen off by South African fighter Hekkie Budler in a WBA title fight that further rubber salt into the wounds of Asian fight fans.

We won't ruin this bout too much, other than saying Budler beat Kokietgym, but it should illustrate what Budler is about ahead of his upcoming defense against Zhong in what could be one of the more even matches at the top of the division this year.

China's Xiong Zhong Zhao is certainly one of the sports more controversial figures in the lower weights and arguably his most controversial fight as the WBC Minimumweight champion saw him defending his belt against Thailand's Lookrak Kiatmugmee. The bout was made on a few days notice after Omari Kimweri was refused permission to fight in China after some "passport irregularities" and as a result Zhong's team were forced to scramble for a fill in replacement, who turned out to be Lookrak.

Sadly Lookrak turned out to be relatively inept, even for such a late replacement, and was easily seen off by Zhong who made his second and final defense of the title prior to losing it to Oswaldo Novoa just over 2 months later.

Technical decisions are often some of the most disappointing bouts in the sport and almost always seem to leave fans dissatisfied. Thankfully however a few bouts leave nobody unsatisfied, in fact if anything they leave the fans so amazed at the action they saw they simply enjoy what they got. That was certainly the case in the 1990 Super Flyweight classic between the legendary Sung Kil Moon of South Korea and Japanese challenger Kenji Matsumura.

We won't completely spoil the bout but, as we often saw when Moon fought, there was action aplenty here with heavy leather being thrown, cuts opening, chaotic violence and everything you could hope to see. The only thing stopping it from being one of the all time classics was the 1-sided nature of the bout and when it was stopped at the end of the 5th round one judge amazingly had the winner 50-40 up whilst using the 10 point must system!

We hope you enjoy this epic encounter which is as action packed as they come and the heart of both really cannot be questioned

Boxing, as we keep hearing, is a business. With that in mind fans will remember fighters who are a bit different and will want to see them more often than fighters who do everything in the "normal" or text book way. One fighter who recently stood out was Naotoshi Nakatani who appeared to be in the ring to put on a show when he took on Kiyonori Matsumoto.

If you're a young fighter just picking up the sport we would not suggest viewing Nakatani as a guy to model yourself off, but as a fan we have to say we love him and his hands down style which seems to be be defense negligent and offensively very exciting.

(Video courtesy of nov K)