Japan’s Boxing Future Under Threat After Ring Tragedies

Boxing Under Threat In Japan Due To Recent Ring Tragedies: “If We Don’t Improve Things, The Sport Won’t Be Able To Continue”

t’s more than a touch tragically ironic that, as great as the sport of boxing is doing right now in Japan, how much it’s flourishing – with lower-weight stars such as Naoya Inoue, Junto Nakatani, Yoshiki Takei and others holding world titles and also giving us superb action – its very existence is under threat.

Due to the recent ring tragedies that saw two young fighters who fought on the same August 2 card die following the suffering of head injuries, these being Shigetoshi Kotari and Hiromasa Urakawa, the Secretary-General of the Japan Boxing Commission, Tsuyoshi Yasukochi, has said the sport “won’t be able to continue if we don’t improve things.”

Yasukochi Sounds Alarm After Deaths of Kotari and Urakawa

The Secretary-General, who is quoted here by The Japan Times, is looking at ways in which to help make the sport safer. These new measures could include urine tests to measure dehydration, along with stricter rules on fighter’s weight loss, especially rapid weight loss.

“If the people involved in the sport can’t improve things, we’ll have to quit,” Yasukochi said. “I understand that we are at a crucial moment where a sport that has been around for 100 years could potentially disappear. I think everyone is working every day with that mindset. When a person dies, it has a big impact. If you don’t feel that, then you’re not qualified to be involved in boxing.”

Could Japanese Boxing Really Face a Ban?

It really would be a crying shame if boxing was banned in Japan, but as Yasukochi – clearly a man who cares – has said, things have to improve. Cutting weight at a fast rate is one of the most dangerous things a fighter can do, so if that issue could be ironed out it would be a great start. But unless all fighters agree and sign up for such an approach, where they agree to be monitored, this idea will fail. And in terms of money, how much would this, along with things like random drug testing and other vital things cost?

Superstar fighters like Inoue and one or two others would survive if boxing was outlawed in Japan, as they could box abroad. But that’s not the point. Japanese fighters have a real sense of pride when they fight before their countrymen and women, this on home soil. It would indeed be terrible if this honour was taken away from Japanese boxers.

The sport has of course come under pressure like this before, in numerous other countries, but the sport has thus far survived. Let’s hope it will be the same as far as the great country of Japan is concerned.