Kosei Tanaka: 5-0, But a “World Champion”

Published

10 years ago

June 4, 2015

The quotation marks need explaining: I, like so many other boxing fans, cannot take the proliferation of alphabet belts seriously. As every seasoned Sweet Science reader knows, a man holding a given trinket is never much better than three or four-to-one on to be the best fighter in the division. Still, even in a case where a youngster is scooping up a vacant strap rather than beating an incumbent champion, the speed with which a prospect is matched for one of boxing’s many alphabet belts is telling. It imparts to the fan the confidence in which the would-be-title-holder is held by his management and fistic team. A gym knows a fighter better than a fighter will ever know a gym. Kosei Tanaka’s gym showed the confidence to see him matched for a world title in just his fifth outing last weekend, in Aichi, Japan.

The number is not without significance. Naoya Inoue, aka “The Monster”, currently a dark horse galloping on the pound-for-pound beach after just eight contests, is a two weight world-champion who must name, already, among the most dangerous fighters on the planet. He was allowed to match for a strap in his sixth contest; Tanaka has just broken his record for a Japanese fighter claiming a strap by a single fight. The fact that Inoue was matched for his second title two weights north, at super-flyweight, just eight months later, leaves him as a distant speck on Kosei Tanaka’s horizon, but he has signalled a warning note to his more prestigious countrymen and it is not a discord that will go unnoticed by the former record holder. For all that Tanaka and Inoue are said to like and respect one-another, a future in which they do not meet for every marble the Japanese fight scene can muster does not seem possible.

Tanaka’s opponent for his this prestigious occasion was Julian Yedras. Yedras, out of Campeche, Mexico, is at first glance every inch the ABC setup one has come to expect from occasions that see a valuable commodity like Tanaka anointed champion, and to an extent he was; as a challenge, Yedras represents neither the advanced thuggery of Orlando Salido, who derailed Vasyl Lomachenko’s early attempt at a strap, nor Inoue’s extreme daring in taking on divisional #1 Adrian Hernandez, for his first title outing. But, having now dropped to just 24-2, Yedras brought more than enough to his teenage opponent’s table to make things interesting.

A record populated mainly by journeymen and prospects, the Mexican’s status is clear, and it is not that of a strapholder – but Yedras had matched one outstanding fighter in Carlos Buitrago, currently ranked the #5 minimumweight in the world. The result was a points loss and perusing the scorecards we can see that it is a wide one (116-113, 118-111, 118-110), but as is so often the case the cards do not tell the story.

Buitrago landed combinations often and they were consistently the better punches, but Yedras had his successes also. Wild-swinging and impossible to discourage, he thundered forwards against his slicker, more experienced opponent, popping out a torqueless jab with persistence, shaping himself around a whipping hook and digging in a right hand to the body. A thudding, rather than a stinging hitter, an apparent lack of power handicaps him but Yedras has at least some of the banditry that made Salido so dangerous, even if he lacks certain elements of style and, shall we say, artistry which his fellow Mexican mastered.

Nevertheless, Yedras looked a handful against Buitrago, and early in the fight he put together a rather frightening rush on the cards. In the mid-rounds Buitrago had mastered him, or so it seemed, until the tenth, when it suddenly looked as though the Mexican’s dogged determination and investment in the body might pay off; the round was close, but I scored it for him, making the fight take on a narrow appearance entering the eleventh. Had Yedras taken both remaining rounds he would have made a draw on my card, and according to broadcaster Box Azteca, he would have done enough to win. In the end, I thought that Yedras won the fight quite literally in the final seconds of the twelfth where he rallied and appeared to hurt his man. It was that close.

This fight gave me the impression that Yedras would be dangerous for Tanaka. So it would prove. He was clearly the fresher man in the closing rounds against the more elite Buitrago, and capable of concentrated bursts of consistent pressure yielding consecutive rounds on the scorecards. This is a dangerous combination for a prospect that has yet to do the twelve. Any sudden lapses of will would be exposed; any tiny coughs in his engine would be heard and pounced upon – and any stylistic tics, say, the propensity to exchange unadvisedly or a failure to work to keep a more limited fighter on the outside could be ruthlessly exploited.

As I wrote in profiling Tanaka in February (an article you can read here), Kosei is “a box-mover in the truest sense, a methodology designed to embrace, to the greatest extent, his natural gifts…it works well for a fighter with the necessary speed.” Speed, the kid has, in abundance, and he was able to repeatedly get around the corner on the Mexican with his left-hook and counter his opponent’s best work in the early rounds. Unsurprisingly to anyone who had seen his fight with Buitrago, however, Yedras was able to match jabs with the young Japanese. As it provided countering opportunities for Tanaka this seemed, perhaps, not to matter; but the plot would shortly thicken.

But before we get to Yedras and his inevitable surge, let’s take a moment to appreciate those things that the fledgling Tanaka does so well; the way he can find a three punch combination to the body off a jab to the face; the footspeed that guides him all the way around his back-stepping opponent to find the hook behind the ear without giving up a punching opportunity; the guard-splitting uppercut behind which he vanishes in a cloud of ethereal footwork; the stunning straight, hook, straight combination that sent the granite-chinned Mexican reeling to the ropes in the second. Old men in hard gyms might shed a single tear at seeing such skill demonstrated by an eighteen month professional, but Tanaka already makes them look easy. He is unencumbered by doubt or bulk.

Returning to Yedras and his jab, his surge. While it is true that his jab was absolutely failing to do its most important job, namely keep the spritely Tanaka busy, Yedras embraced this fact which was so detrimental to his scorecard and his face, and slowly, surely, he followed his jab in, and by the middle of the third he found ground zero, his target, the space inside his opponent’s rapier left-hook. Showing an immaturity typical of his age or perhaps even a machismo more typical of his opponent’s national character, Tanaka elected to stay in the pocket and fight.

It led to some fantastic exchanges, as Tanaka’s speed was neutralised by Yedras and his determination to punch regardless of what was coming the other way. It also induced in Tanaka a pause, eschewing the out-fighting at which he was so clearly the better, in favour of infighting, where the competition was hotter. Tanaka was still, clearly, winning the fight and he followed Yedras to the pocket with such savagery in the fifth that it seemed he may be on the verge of stopping him, but he dropped the fourth and perhaps the sixth, as Yedras stepped over the line from heart into sheer bloody-mindedness.

A golden fluidity on offence and defence brought Tanaka firmly back to the box-seat through eight, although fire-fights continued to break out with breath-taking regularity as the Japanese elected to hold his ground rather than move. In the ninth, Tanaka was finally chin-checked by a legitimate counter-right that landed flush and was perhaps momentarily troubled; but within seconds he had brushed the punch off and was back to his foraging attack, his chief weapon that varied, roaming left. Tanaka’s swarm is composed of more fast punches than perhaps anyone in the sport right now. It’s not that he has the out-and-out fastest hands, it’s that he is bringing across the eighth punch in the swarm at the same speed as the first and second; his lack of power is now absolutely confirmed because he was landing so many shots that even a chin like the Mexican’s couldn’t hold up against these shots in volume from any kind of puncher. I would speculate, though, that his punches may have the disorienting qualities of a Joe Calzaghe, the ability to “mix a man’s mind” so aptly described by Muhammad Ali.

While we now know absolutely that Tanaka lacks power, we can confirm, too, that he runs a deluxe engine. This was a fast fight and both men threw many punches but Tanaka is the man on the wrong end of the economy equation; he is a volume puncher who moves a lot, who circles, who forages. This means there will be few fights where he throws fewer punches than his opponent and perhaps none in which he will take fewer steps. Although Tanaka had the look of a tired man come the eleventh, and although he was likely out-worked in that round, he moved more, threw more, landed more, and rather unfortunately, showboated more than an opponent of seeming limitless stamina in the twelfth.

Those who were a little underwhelmed by Tanaka’s belt-winning performance might consider this for a moment, as well as the fact that Yedras is a better opponent than has generally been credited. It is also worth considering that of the official scorecards, the two judges scoring 117-111 are far more a reflection of reality than the third card which read 115-113, and which seems close to unjustifiable. Finally, it should never be forgotten that Tanaka was 4-0 at bell. The aforementioned Muhammad Ali was fighting a late substitute by the name of Jimmy Robinson at that point in his career. Robinson, a career light-heavy, amassed a final record of 11-26. Joe Calzaghe on the other hand was fighting a Cypriot named Martin Rosamond. Rosamond, fighting his last fight, dropped to 10-16 and was stopped that night for the tenth time. Tanaka is ahead of the curve based upon this result, not behind it. Unlike Ali and Calzaghe he will learn his trade against ranked men, not journeymen. It seems likely that his opponent in one of his next two fights will be fellow Japanese Katsunari Takayama, inarguably among the three best minimumweights in the world. A victory over Takayama followed by a successful title-tilt somewhere north of 105lbs, a weight Tanaka is happy to acknowledge he won’t be able to make forever, and Japan will have another fighter breathing down the neck of the pound-for-pound list before he has even had ten fights.

That is all quite far away, admittedly. But there may be a change of wind coming. It blows from the East.

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Matt McGrain

Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

16 hours ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

2 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

Published

3 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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