Any thoughts on the Dream Boy aka The Monster of Chukyo? A fighter who set a few world records such as becoming the fastest Japanese boxer to win a world title, as well as the fastest 4 to achieve championship in weight classes within 21 fights. He had announced his retirement last year due to eye problems and was forced to quit. Tanaka was a fighter who fought had good hand speed and was a great offensive fighter. A real blood and guts fighter and although he did have some good boxing ability he was very defensively flawed. As with most Japanese boxers with the heart of a samurai Tanaka had no quit in him. He had a pretty decent career who will mostly be remembered for providing exciting bouts and coming up short against another terrific Japanese fighter in Kazuto Ioka. This content is protected
I think he was pretty good, he had a decent fight of the year contender once I forgot who it was against. I think it was Sho Kimura? I think you're right in your original post that if he's remembered by non-Japanese fans in 30 years it's probably as being a very good win for Ioka. There was a time where the genre of boxing fan who sometimes overstates the greatness of lower weight fighters in response to them being vastly underrated by most, thought he was going to be a future top 15 p4p guy. I remember similar talks about Ginjiro too. A career to be proud of, the answer to a few trivia questions and some enjoyable fights but not anywhere near what some people thought he was going to do at the time. I hope retirement treats him well.