Yasuei Yakushiji

Yasuei Yakushiji, a Japanese bantamweight from Tsukumi in Oita Prefecture, was a former WBC world champion whose professional career ran from 1987 to 1995. An orthodox boxer standing 5 ft 8 in, unusually tall for the 118lb division, he retired with 24 wins, three defeats and one draw from 28 contests, with 16 victories inside the distance. He successfully defended the WBC championship four times and completed his eight-year career without being knocked down.

Yakushiji was born on July 22, 1968, and took up boxing under the influence of his father, who had boxed as an amateur. He reached the semi-finals of the 1986 Inter-High School tournament before joining the Matsuda Boxing Gym after leaving school in 1987. His professional debut took place on July 10, 1987; Hiroyuki Murayama was his opponent, and Yakushiji won a four-round points victory in Nagoya. Yakushiji then stopped Teruaki Sato in two rounds, but his progress was far from smooth. He lost two of his next three contests, dropping decisions to Mitsuo Kawashima and the unbeaten Shigeru Okabe, before drawing over eight rounds with Phantom Ozawa. His record after six appearances stood at three wins, two defeats and one draw, an undistinguished beginning for a man who would later hold a world championship.

His career was also interrupted in 1989 when the Japanese Boxing Commission suspended him for six months following an arrest for speeding on a motorcycle. He continued training in Singapore and resumed boxing with a sequence of stoppage victories. The most serious event of his career occurred against Jun Yonesaka in Sapporo on June 14, 1990. Yakushiji won by knockout in the tenth and final round, but Yonesaka died several days later from injuries suffered in the contest. Yakushiji considered leaving boxing before deciding to continue. A subsequent period in Los Angeles brought him into contact with Japanese-American trainer Mack Kurihara, whose work helped refine a fighter who had previously relied more heavily on size, strength, and determination.

The improvement was reflected in a long winning sequence. Yakushiji stopped Kazuma Saeki in the opening round in October 1990 and Speedy Kikuchi in the ninth the following February. On June 30, 1991, he challenged Keiichi Ozaki for the Japanese bantamweight championship in Nagoya. Yakushiji stopped the defending champion in the ninth round, then retained the title by knocking out Yukio Nakatani in the first round that December. He relinquished the national crown and continued against imported opposition, defeating Ricarte Cainiela over ten rounds and stopping Jung Min Suh, Ruben De La Cruz and Francisco Peralta. By the middle of 1993 he had transformed an uncertain early record into a run of 14 consecutive victories.

His world-title opportunity arrived unexpectedly. Joichiro Tatsuyoshi, Japan’s most popular boxer and a former WBC bantamweight champion, had been due to challenge South Korea’s unbeaten Jung-Il Byun but withdrew after suffering a detached retina. Yakushiji took his place and met Byun at the Aichi Prefectural Gym in Nagoya on December 23, 1993. He won the WBC championship by split decision after 12 rounds. The result was close rather than commanding, but Yakushiji had accepted the opportunity at short notice and defeated a champion who entered with ten victories from ten contests. He made his first defence in April 1994, knocking out Josefino Suarez in the tenth round, before meeting Byun again on July 31. The return was more decisive. Yakushiji floored the South Korean five times and forced a stoppage in the eleventh, removing much of the argument left by their first contest.

Those victories led to the defining match of Yakushiji’s career. Tatsuyoshi had recovered sufficiently to return and had won the WBC interim title, creating an unusual situation in which Japan had two men claiming versions of the same championship. Their meeting at Rainbow Hall in Nagoya on December 4, 1994, was the first world-title unification contest between two Japanese boxers. Tatsuyoshi possessed greater public appeal and entered as the favourite despite having completed only 12 professional bouts. Yakushiji, by contrast, had already boxed 25 times and made two successful world-title defences. Before a large and strongly partisan audience, he refused to become involved in the challenger’s less disciplined exchanges. He used his height, quicker straight punches and short counters against Tatsuyoshi’s wider combinations. Neither man was knocked down, although Tatsuyoshi later disclosed that he had broken his left hand in the opening round. Yakushiji retained the title by majority decision. Carol Castellano scored it 116–112 and Nobuaki Uratani 115–114, while Ken Morita returned a 114–114 draw.

Yakushiji’s style was based upon balance, accuracy and a useful jab rather than spectacular movement. His height allowed him to box effectively at range, but he was also physically strong and capable of producing sustained pressure when required. The improvement made under Kurihara was evident in the economy of his punching. Against Tatsuyoshi, he was usually the calmer man and frequently beat the challenger to the target with shorter blows. His record of 16 stoppages in 24 victories showed respectable power, although he was not simply a knockout specialist. His durability was equally notable. Across 196 professional rounds, he was never officially put on the canvas, despite meeting several aggressive challengers and finishing his career against one of the division’s most relentless pressure fighters.

A fourth defence followed against Mexico’s Cuauhtemoc Gomez at Rainbow Hall on April 2, 1995. Yakushiji retained his championship by majority decision over 12 rounds, extending his winning sequence to 21 contests. His reign ended in Nagoya on July 30 against Wayne McCullough, the unbeaten Olympic silver medallist from Belfast. McCullough, trained by Eddie Futch and Thel Torrance, maintained a high pace and repeatedly reached the champion with his jab. Yakushiji responded strongly and sought the stoppage, but he was unable to disrupt the challenger’s rhythm often enough. McCullough won a split decision and took the WBC title. He later described Yakushiji as a strong, tough champion with a stiff punch, while explaining that his corner had identified the Japanese boxer’s tendency to leave his chin high after jabbing.

Yakushiji retired shortly after the McCullough defeat, leaving the sport at 27 rather than attempting to rebuild towards another championship challenge. His final figures were 24 wins, three losses and one draw, with 16 knockouts. The brevity of his career restricted the number of internationally known opponents on his record. Still, his championship period was substantial: victories over Byun twice, Tatsuyoshi, Suarez and Gomez, followed by a competitive defeat against McCullough. The Tatsuyoshi contest remains his most historically important performance because of the national interest surrounding it and its status as the first unification match between Japanese world champions.

After retiring, Yakushiji remained a public figure in Japan. He worked as a boxing commentator and appeared as an actor in films, stage productions and television programmes, as well as on radio. He also became associated with Japanese television programmes devoted to pachinko. In April 2007 he opened the Yakushiji Boxing Gym in Nagoya, thereby maintaining a direct connection with the sport in the city where most of his major contests had taken place. His standing rests chiefly upon a short but successful WBC reign and the disciplined victory over Tatsuyoshi, when he overcame the more celebrated boxer by remaining the more accurate and controlled professional.