BoxRec

It is something I posted in another article about the rising prospect Hiroki Okada then I wanted to make a post about it... Why Japan's boxers rarely fights outside their country (mostly vs foreign opponents)? Can't be only house factor and fans/crowd/audience/house public (sorry didn't find exact correspondent word).

Most good Japanese fighters seem to be afraid or something about fighting out of japan (dunno if there is another thing involved like honor, money or else beyond this, is something I really would like to know). A few with guts do and/or did it sometimes like Ryota Murata (Takashi Miura) and some rare old ones like Toshiaki Nishioka, Joichiro Tatsuyoshi and Kuniaki Shibata.

IMO a good confident boxer fights everywhere, it makes good to expose itself to this kind of different contingencies, environment and pression (the most u learn how to feel ok with it), most of boxers with balls go to japan to fight them (mostly Philippines, Mexico, thailandese) never (or very rarely) the contrary, just pick randomly some good boxer from Japan and see their career resume where the fights were done.

You see guys in active like the great undefeated Shinsuke Yamanaka and also undefeated rising stars Naoya Inoue and Masayoshi Nakatani (counting Hiroki Okada). I think you'll only see if they are what they seem to be when fight outside Japan.

* I can be divagating since this happens in US and other countries too, (I'm not saying all fighters you know) what I wanna say is that the great boxers capable of going outside to face others should do it, not depending on the house always. You see, for example, Mexican, Argentine and some European boxers, they go outside to fight regardless of fighting at home and many aren't too good or famous...

Money ? they have a thriving scene over there and a lot of them are household names

There's no incentive for them to travel. They make pretty good money at home, and they mostly fight at lower weights that don't get a lot of attention from US TV networks. I mean, do you think HBO is offering big money for guys like Ioka or Yamanaka to come fight stateside? The only reason Inoue is getting attention is because he's a possible opponent for Chocolatito.

Japanese fear losing, because they're considered dead meat if they do. They feel by far more comfortable fighting at home & judged by locals
It'll be interesting to see if & when Hikaru Nishida & Shintaro Matsumoto will recover after losing their OPBF title to Aussies Ritchie & Mitchell in their own back yard.

Aussies are rarely invited to fight in Japan

AntonS wrote:Japanese fear losing, because they're considered dead meat if they do. They feel by far more comfortable fighting at home & judged by locals
It'll be interesting to see if & when Hikaru Nishida & Shintaro Matsumoto will recover after losing their OPBF title to Aussies Ritchie & Mitchell in their own back yard.

Aussies are rarely invited to fight in Japan

Matsumoto was a very poor champion, very very poor, and will likely be. And Mitchell looked class beating him. Nishida was supposed to return back in...October but actually fell down some stairs days before he was set to fight Fuchigami, he suffered a concussion and will be out until next year.

Aussies have been invited over a few times this year, with Ogilvie, Brubaker (his bout with Takayama was brillaint), Ritchie (twice), Mitchell, Lovelock, McKay and Hawton. It's been great to see Japan and Australia really have bouts for the OPBF titles this year, and it was good to see Futa travel and do in Tomlinson inside a round. Though lets not pretend either country has the best of judging (Adones Aguelo found out down under last year).

The reason they don't travel is the top guys get paid well, don't get many offers to fight on the road, and don't have to. The B and C tier guys do (Shohei Kawashima has travelled a couple of times, Koki Eto, Takuya Kogawa), as do a lot of youngsters (such as Kazusa Arai and previous Riku Kano) who aren't old enough to get a Japanese license so they fight in Thailand, Philippines or sometimes Korea (Hayato Kimura being a notable one here).

There isn't much reason to travel at 105-118 (Mexico, Japan, Philippines and Thailand are the key countries and Japanese promoters typically have more money than Philippines and Thailand), above 118 things are different and it's why Miura has travelled, Uchiyama had wanted to travel but things never fit, Hisashi Amagasa, Satoshio Hosono, Takuya Watanabe, Yasutaka Ishimoto, Murata, Fuchigami, have all travelled (and as under-dogs), Obara travelled twice (and got hosed in one of those bouts).

For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

They make more money fighting at home. The boxing media here in North America generally ignores even the best Japanese boxers.

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

The only British fighter who went over to Japan for a world title fight that I can think of off the top of my head is Rendall Monroe who fought Toshiaki Nishioka for the WBC Super Bantamweight title.

EDIT

And going way back Alan Rudkin against Fighting Harada back in 1965 at Bantamweight.

IRLangmaid25 wrote:

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

The only British fighter who went over to Japan for a world title fight that I can think of off the top of my head is Rendall Monroe who fought Toshiaki Nishioka for the WBC Super Bantamweight title.

Yeah a lot of guys just don't wanna leave home which is perfectly understandable, but it's not hard for me to imagine an Elite American or British Flyweight being able to make more money in Japan where his fights would be Main Events on the card instead of the undercard on a British or American card.

Wayne McCullogh's a Brit right?

IRLangmaid25 wrote:

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

The only British fighter who went over to Japan for a world title fight that I can think of off the top of my head is Rendall Monroe who fought Toshiaki Nishioka for the WBC Super Bantamweight title.

EDIT

And going way back Alan Rudkin against Fighting Harada back in 1965 at Bantamweight.

Boxing Prospect wrote:Wayne McCullogh's a Brit right?

Yes Wayne McCullogh was born in Belfast.

Same reason Floyd has never fought outside of the States?

danconnollyeire wrote:Same reason Floyd has never fought outside of the States?

Floyd would have made big money fighting Hatton in England.

In Mayweather's case, it was just fear.

With Japanese boxers, it's because they make good money in Japan but cannot elsewhere because their names are not well-known outside their home country.

People don't want to fight Japanese guys, their status is too low worldwide.

Jun Long Zhang is probably better as Deontay Wilder, somehow allmost everyone thinks he isn't.

Freedom2013 wrote:

danconnollyeire wrote:Same reason Floyd has never fought outside of the States?

Floyd would have made big money fighting Hatton in England.

In Mayweather's case, it was just fear.

More than he made in Vegas? I don't think so.

asdfjkl wrote:People don't want to fight Japanese guys, their status is too low worldwide.

Jun Long Zhang is probably better as Deontay Wilder, somehow allmost everyone thinks he isn't.

You had to go and tard up the thread, didn't you?

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

It's probably why Roman Gonzalez is with Teiken Promotions and has fought quite a bit in Japan.

jbizzle20 wrote:

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

It's probably why Roman Gonzalez is with Teiken Promotions and has fought quite a bit in Japan.

Yep

gilgamesh wrote:For a lot of the Top Japanese boxers it just wouldn't make financial sense to fight anywhere else. They're mostly the littler guys in the sport like Bantamweight on down, and those fighters rarely ever draw much of an audience in the West so they're definitely gonna make more money and get more exposure fighting in Japan than they would anywhere else.

Frankly even an American or British fighter who was that small would probably do his career some favors by fighting in Japan, there would probably be more money in it for him to compete over there where there's more interest in those weight classes and the fighters in them.

An off shoot point to this is the way Japanese fighters are promoted and developed and how that helps them whilst their English speaking country parts miss out.

Every Japanese fighter is managed by a Gym (Teiken, Ohashi,Watanabe,Misako, Ioka etc) as opposed to what we have as promoters. Those gyms can be full of talent in and around those liar classes. Compare the sparring that Paul Butler or the Yafai's get with fighters at their weight class to those that Yaegashi gets at the Ohashi gym where at similar weights they have the Inoue brothers) and also how close they are to sparring from other top regional fighters (Yamanaka sparred with Tapales ahead of the first Moreno bout) talent like that doesn't tend to be in France and Germany at 112/115/118.

Doesn't explain why they fight at home but a Brit at the lower weights should go and spend time at the Ioka or the Ohashi or Shinsei or Watanabe