Jiro Watanabe - Forgotten Japanese Super Fly Great - 11 Title Defenses

Wouldn’t be surprised—they did that to cruiserweights at first too (or was it Boxing Illustrated?)

 

JR. Heavyweight (WBA)

 

He was talked about fairly frequently on here a few years back by the lads who really knew their lower weight boxing and held in very high regard by all of them. Mante, Flea, Raging Bull, Confucius, sweet scientist, Sweet Pea, scar, Lester, McGrain (hi(!), WhataRock and others. Mantequilla/lora was the most knowledgeable about him imo.

 

Bump

 

Watanabe was a beast. Amazing talent.
Wish him and Galaxy had fought, would've been a helluva fight.

 

Awesome post.

 

11 title defenses is impressive, but in the lower end of the scale, its often not quite as remarkable as you think.

I'll explain why. The competition level is often green and inexperienced for the title defenses at the lower levels of the scale.

1 title defense vs a 4-2 guy
1 title defense vs 17-8-1 guy.
2 title defenses vs 10-1 guys, which Watanabe barley won the decision, then a re-match ( 10-2 ). This fighter finished his career 10-4

All of his title defenses, expect the one vs. the 4-2 guy took place in Japan. You have to visit Japan to understand they greet Asian nations ( They do like Americans ) with what a form of silent antipathy. Their guy is seldom losing a decision vs. a foreigner. Japan is at odds with Korea and China, which could make for some heated fights now that China is in pro boxing.

Jiro Watanabe was mob linked, so you have to wonder if there was any funny business in some of his fights. Since I have not seen any of his close fights, I can't say.

 

Just wanted to pop in an add that him fighting Galaxy is one of my favorite hypotheticals.

 

Would have been interesting since Galaxy fought 99% bums or nobodies and that's who all those KO's were against, so would have been interesting to see if a great fighter could have taken those punches.

 

They had an exhibition years later.

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