Yong-Soo Choi vs. Yamato Mitani - sleeper trilogy of the 90's?

Credit to @Asian_boxing / @takahiro-onaga for hosting both of their 1996 rematches. Yet another example of the unheralded (but much appreciated, by us core followers!) yeoman's work put in on that site.

These constitute the only footage of the Choi vs. Mitani trilogy available online, it seems. Hopefully their 1994 ten-rounder (when both were unbeaten prospects, with Choi holding the OPBF title) emerges from the vault at some point, to complete the collection for posterity. Meantime, enjoy this pair of clashes over the WBA super featherweight championship:

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Choi's reign never made big enough waves to cement his name in the collective Western boxing fan consciousness, although it was a respectable one (hitting 7 defenses before losing a rematch to Mitani's countryman Takanori Hatakeyama). Likewise, poor Mitani's legacy is linked inextricably to Choi's, and while he did capture the Japanese national and later the Oriental & Pacific title (with a single defense) at super feather, the gutsy southpaw dreamed big and, like Icarus, paid the price; with over a quarter of his ring experience spent locked in fruitless combat with his mullet-rocking Korean arch-foil (34 of his 127 professional rounds boxed) - leaving him with a 12-4 record and little chance of too many outside that part of the world and of a certain generation being familiar with him. That makes stuff like this a real gem to discover for hobbyists or adepts of pugilism, aside from a low probability of being casually stumbled across in a tangential game of "six degrees of separation". Both of the 1996 matches are fantastic viewing, and both unsung but talented Asian fighters deserve a little widespread recognition, even if decades ex post facto.

Here are my scorecards for their WBA 130lb crown battles:

Choi vs. Mitani I

1. 10-9 Mitani, bravely commandeering the inside and working that snappy right hook.
2. 10-9 Mitani, 20-18 Mitani - great back & forth action
3. 10-9 Mitani, close, 30-27 Mitani
4. 10-9 Choi, 39-37 Mitani - tide beginning to slowly turn as those vicious body uppercuts take a toll.
5. 10-9 Choi, 48-47 Mitani - really interesting tactical adjustment from the champ; spring-up lead-right ambushes from a low head-to-waist duck. Surprisingly effective.
6. 10-9 Choi, 57-57 - the champ gaining in confidence and taking ever wider swings jumping in, but the southpaw not giving him an inch, flurrying back fiercely until he needs to clinch just to catch his breath. Mitani opens a bad cut on Choi's upper right eyelid. From a punch.
7. 10-9 Mitani, 67-66 Mitani - turning into a scavenger, turning Choi and sagely (if savagely) targeting his cut eye with looping lefts, needling with jabs from outside and then roughhousing and paddling the sides in clinches - Mitani ugly effective.
8. 10-9 Mitani, 77-75 Mitani - really clever boxing from Tokyo's native son as the crowd roars to life, realizing he is starting to pull away, now seemingly with a world title in just his ninth pro bout within his grasp.
9. 10-8 Choi, 85-85 - headbutts getting a bit unruly, meriting a stern bilateral warning and then a point deducted from Mitani. Choi's uppercuts straying low too...the action generally devolving into a filthy mess. Headbutts continue and while both seem affected by them, Mitani seems the worse for wear, becoming a sitting duck for Choi's bowstring rights from a crouch a`la the 5th.
10. 10-9 Mitani, 95-94 Mitani - Mitani grabbing strategically, often by the windpipe, yanking & jerking Choi around, spinning him dizzily before releasing, and landing sneaky hooks on the breaks. Choi furiously uppercutting away but unable to punish his tormentor.
11. 10-9 Mitani, close, 105-103 Mitani - Mitani up to his old tricks, but Choi now hip to his racket, and preemptively squeezing his gloves over Mitani's arms to pin them before he can grab, and then working the body frantically. Cut reopened from a Mitani left cross. Ghastly looking. A few more big lefts seal this one.
12. 10-9 Choi, 114-113 Mitani - a bull-strong finish by the man from Siheung, and it ultimately made the difference on the official cards between victory & defeat. My view was that Mitani had enough banked to earn the strap (just), but c'est la vie. It was a close, fun war - and not the last chapter in their story...

If ever there needed to be a third installment of a rivalry that was already 2-0 in one fighter's direction... hell, even if Choi had been 5-0 against Mitani, that January '96 simply battle demanded an immediate rematch.

Choi vs. Mitani II

(wtf, they've switched haircuts!! Mitani now has the mullet, a bleached-blonde one at that..)

1. 10-9 Mitani, once again setting a tone on his own terms, using lots of lateral & upper body movement, slapping down most of Choi's jabs & finding a home for the straight left hand lead.
2. 10-9 Mitani, 20-18 Mitani - continuing to box very nicely, working a terrific double right upper-hook into Choi's left ear while turning him in the pocket, but Choi starting to connect often downstairs.
3. 10-9 Choi, 29-28 Mitani - bearing down on Mitani, eating jabs by the handful, and looping the right hand into his diaphragm, Choi begins to force the challenger into a constant retreat.
4. 10-9 Mitani, ultra-close, 39-37 Mitani - again just nudging his way past Mitani's sharp and cleanly scoring jab, Choi bullies in with body swipes and rattles down with thunderous overhands in tight quarters. Mitani plants a HUGE right hook on him, and nearly seizes momentum away, but Choi starts dialing in the right on the nose and has Mitani scrambling. Beautiful jabs and evasive maneuvers by Mitani down the stretch.
5. 10-9 Choi, 48-47 Mitani - that lead right is a menace, one Mitani can't avoid indefinitely. Choi just walks through everything. Mitani getting full leverage on some brutal combinations downstairs, but Choi hardly sucking a single disordered breath. Choi's gas tank looking more spacious as he bears down on his prey, smacking him with hooks with both hands. Desperate spearing right off the ropes by Mitani, crowd loves it, not enough to steal the frame.
6. 10-9 Choi, 57-57 - Mitani playing keep-away behind that educated right jab, clearly still knackered from the previous few rounds' ordeal. Choi not slowing down or relenting, however. Marching in with a high guard, lumping onto the body, shaking off clinch attempts, right hand up top, rinse & repeat.
7. 10-9 Choi, 67-66 Choi - Mitani starting off tidily, catching his pursuer with head-snapping jabs and skirting just beyond his reach, until finally tying up for a rest. Nice counter left uppercut but Choi hardly blinks. Choi with a big rally in the final minute, stringing hooks together, hurting Mitani, almost dropping him. Mitani running on fumes but stays upright.
8. 10-9 Mitani, 76-76 - the challenger now digs a little deeper and combines his outboxing prowess (again, really pretty right jab) with some visceral phonebooth infighting, taking initiative away from Choi by first launching his own heavy uppercut combos on the body as they slam together.
9. 10-9 Choi, 86-85 Choi - no more screwing around, Yong-Soo range-finding with the jab and otherwise putting his all into huge can-opener rights downstairs, literally spanking Mitani across the ring. Overhands crashing down into his temples worsen the beleaguered Eddoko's plight. Mitani still loading up on his own right hooks and left uppercuts but forced to spend most of the second half of this one holding, barely able to muster up more than a 2-punch combo without collapsing.
10. 10-9 Mitani, 95-95 - Mitani seems energized by his stool rest, and puts a new polish on that accurate right jab from outside, his footwork also grown sprier than in the last few. Choi reaches in arrogantly with a lazy right hand lead with his left down, and Mitani cracks him with a check right hook, to a raucous scream of approval from nearly every ticket holder in the Metropolitan Gym. Fake-out jab up top buried in the guard, and then a diving left on the stomach from Mitani. Classic, effective boxing.
11. 10-9 Mitani, 105-104 Mitani - a flutter of right jabs by Mitani does nothing to discourage Choi from hacking down at him while looming in front, up on his toes, back arched to provide forward momentum -- but a flush counter left on the bridge of the nose does give pause. Mitani clinching often now, frustrating both Choi and the ref, a stern warning on the tip of his tongue. Choi bashes with a rabbit punch after being shoved gracelessly into the ropes. Choi with some big hooks at the bell, not enough to catch up with Mitani's work in the first two minutes.
12. 10-8 Choi, 114-113 Choi - bending forward, weaving through Mitani's jabs, Choi's urgency has reached fever pitch. Choi shredding the body and blasting Mitani across the face with hooks, just punching through all of his clinch attempts to successfully disrupt them. Mitani doing his all just to hang on until the final bell...and very nearly doesn't make it, trapped in a corner and hammered with over thirty seconds remaining and finally succumbing to a knockdown by accumulation with just 5 on the clock.

 

But for a point deduction and knockdown on the respective nights, I'd have Mitani claiming the WBA super featherweight title by a two-point margin, then defending with a draw nine months later. Alas, he remains off the sport's championship ledgers. Choi, for his part, sees his reign credited with two nip & tuck crusades against such a good fighter...although most probably regard him as just a blip on the decade's lighter-weights scene, relegated to footnote status as the man who dealt Victor Hugo "El Gaucho Salteño" Paz his first stoppage loss - which minimization does him (and, transitively, Mitani) a grave disservice.

 

@Boxing Prospect @Drew101 @roughdiamond @Russell - this seems like you guys' type of thing.

 

You've seriously peaked my interest with this one. I'll probably watch these tomorrow, maybe. Your threads are always great.

And @Asian_boxing / @takahiro-onaga, thanks for the work you do on Asian boxing. Seriously, it such a great resource, especially for us westerners. It has some awesome bouts, like the Takahashi vs Jockygym wars. Thanks.

 

@PhillyPhan69

@George Crowcroft?

 

Lol already saw it and plan on looking at it this week...but not today lol

 

Lol you got enough bouts as it is. Very stringent, eh? Wheras I'm an extremely bipolar viewer lol.

 

Bump because it will be on page 2 classic otherwise.

 

I'll give it a look. Will probably have a card for it in the next few days.

 

Apparently in the amateurs Matani was something of a big deal and carried in some weighty expectations... so there was, domestically, at least a mild sense of disappointment when he fought only sixteen times in the pros, and lost a quarter of those. Of course there's a hard cap on how disappointed everyone can be when three of your four losses are razor-thin could-swing-either-way affairs versus a world class opponent ...and, from above, I'm not convinced Mitani even should've lost all three. Now, while the judges on both occasions were in my view a tad overly generous to Choi, neither rises to the level of saying Mitani was robbed (after all, they were both fought in Japan). Sometimes a talent is thrown into the deep end too early, unready - but I don't believe that is the case here. You can be good enough to be a world champ and just have it not work out for you, if the cookie happens to crumble thus. Mitani was, IMO, good enough...and it happened to just not work out for him. Them, as they say, is the breaks.

 

Nah just taking the day off....I generally work 2-3 in a day...I make a list but with my adhd suddenly it is 6 months later before I get to what I thought about...but these 2 seem to have me interested

 

@Tin_Ribs?

 

Anybody ever seen their 1st?

 

Never seen their first, but Mitani is one of those many TV friendly fighters Japan had. Of his 16 bouts footage is out there of around half of them, went 91-13 (62) in the amateurs with the following achievements:

• 42nd Interscholastic featherweight championship
• 59th All Japan Championship Featherweight Champion
• 60th All Japan Championship Featherweight Champion
• 62nd All Japan Championship lightweight championship
• 47th National Lightweight Division Lightweight Champion

Likewise Choi was rarely in a bad fight himself.

 

Weird ass ending here

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