Earlier this week former Japanese Minimumweight champion Kai Ishizawa (11-4, 10) [石澤開] announced on social media that he was ending his professional boxing career, at the age of 27.
The exciting, and hard hitting Ishizawa had been a popular fighter from very early in his career, with an aggressive style, and questionable defense. His style had real success at domestic level, and saw him winning the Japanese Youth title in just his5th bout, stopping Yuga Inoue, and the Japanese senior title in 2022, when he stopped Katsuki Mori.
Sadly for him however he struggled when fighters could take his power, with two of his 4 losses coming to Masataka Taniguchi, with the second coming in a WBO world title fight with Ishizawa failed to make weight, and the others coming in his last two bouts, to Vince Paras and Regia Suganob.
Ishizawa spoke to Boxmob.jp, and explained “Despite the damage to my body and the failure of the world championship in that way (coming in overweight for the second bout with Ishizawa), opponents like Vince Paras (Philippines) and Reggie Suganob prepared me for a path to the world if I had won. However, I was unable to grab either chance. I'm not young as a boxer. I wanted to continue, but my second life is overwhelmingly longer. If I were to bet my whole life on boxing, I thought it would be difficult, considering the environment around me.”
He revealed that 2 weeks after losing to Suganob, in late April, he had decided he would retire.
Talking about his favourite memory as a fighter he explained his November 2018 win over Yuga Inoue for the Japanese Youth title, and admitted it was the first time he had expressed his emotion in the ring.
Talking about his time at the MT Gym he explained "I joined the gym in middle school and came here hoping to win a belt under Murano-san (Chairman Murano Ken). They gave me many chances. I wasn't able to repay them with results, but I'm truly grateful” He also spoke about fellow MT Gym fighter, and currentWBC Bantamweight champion, Junto Nakatani (27-0, 20) [中谷 潤人]. He thought one day he would surpass Nakatani, but seemed to realise in recent years that Nakatani was a very special fighter and “gave up” chasing the achievements of the now 3-weight world champion.
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