Recently Ring Magazine released a “best I faced” article for a fighter named Kuniaki Shibata. Never heard of him before reading this, but learning about him, he’s a three time-two weight world champion(including two time Ring/lineal champ) with wins over Vicente Saldivar and Ben Villaflor. As far as I can tell he’s the type of guy who should’ve been inducted into the hall of fame years ago but hasn’t gotten his due credit yet.
https://www.ringtv.com/653706-best-i-fa ... i-shibata/
Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
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franciscojavier
- Super Bantamweight
- Posts: 67
- Joined: 05 Jun 2021, 18:14
Re: Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
I'm a big fan. Very exciting fighter with excellent skills, but let down a bit perhaps by not having the most solid chin. He clearly beat Villaflor the 1st time, stopped Saldivar, and ran the very underrated Marcel close.
Re: Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
Interestingly, I'm just about to start watching his fights myself, might post some scorecards in here.524046 wrote: ↑07 Jun 2023, 11:38 Recently Ring Magazine released a “best I faced” article for a fighter named Kuniaki Shibata. Never heard of him before reading this, but learning about him, he’s a three time-two weight world champion(including two time Ring/lineal champ) with wins over Vicente Saldivar and Ben Villaflor. As far as I can tell he’s the type of guy who should’ve been inducted into the hall of fame years ago but hasn’t gotten his due credit yet.
https://www.ringtv.com/653706-best-i-fa ... i-shibata/
BTW, do you know how to get a real username 524046?
Re: Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
Shibata
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Villaflor
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145-140 Shibata (not how sure how to score on this system - ref: Walter Cho 70-72 Wilbert Minn 71-72 Tamotsu Tomihara 69-71)
Shibata was exceptionally quick, great head movement and shot selection and nullified the clearly bigger man. Lot to like about Villaflor but he wasted a lot of jabs, didn't have the tightest defense.
Re: Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
Just watched his fight with Echegaray, or at least the 11 rounds that are on the footage and I can't recommend it.
No doubt Shibata is quick and skillful and at times explosive, and he is very elusive even at range.
But he uses that elusiveness too much, he spends longs spells of almost every round doing next to nothing other than avoiding being hit, then he pounces late in rounds with a couple counters or short bursts of punches to nick rounds. Very frustrating viewing even if there is a lot to admire about his ability.
I'm kinda looking forward to that questionable chin of his being exposed to be honest. And it's Shibata vs Villaflor 2 up next.
No doubt Shibata is quick and skillful and at times explosive, and he is very elusive even at range.
But he uses that elusiveness too much, he spends longs spells of almost every round doing next to nothing other than avoiding being hit, then he pounces late in rounds with a couple counters or short bursts of punches to nick rounds. Very frustrating viewing even if there is a lot to admire about his ability.
I'm kinda looking forward to that questionable chin of his being exposed to be honest. And it's Shibata vs Villaflor 2 up next.
Re: Great Fighters You Only Learned About Recently
The rematch with Villaflor is worth watching, you don't need to skip to the time stamp as the fight is only a minute and half long but starting the video at 5m and 5s is very satisfying