Japanese bantamweight prospect Kazuki Anaguchi entered final Boxing Day’s conflict with Seiya Tsutsumi as a fighter on the rise. Regardless of turning professional simply two years prior, he had already picked up a lot of noteworthy wins, together with UDs over former title challenger Jonathan Taconing and undefeated countrymen Kento Uchigamae and Shori Umezu.
He and Tsutsumi wound up placing on a late contender for Battle of the Yr. Anaguchi proved the superior boxer, however couldn’t persistently face up to Tsutsumi’s energy, in the end falling by way of UD on account of 4 knockdowns regardless of profitable the six rounds on two playing cards.
Our personal Scott Christ famous afterwards that Anaguchi didn’t look nicely and his evaluation sadly proved correct. Anaguchi was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgical procedure to deal with a subdural hematoma, or mind bleed, and remained in a coma all through the month of January. The Japanese Boxing Fee now report that Anaguchi handed earlier this morning.
I cycled by means of a couple of boilerplate responses when planning this text. One other reminder of the hazard fighters face, left all of it within the ring, went out on his defend, very promising profession, and many others. I don’t suppose that’s truthful to Anaguchi’s reminiscence to only slap some generic sentences down and name it a day.
Kazuki Anaguchi, by all accounts, had an unbelievable future forward of him. He risked that future towards an older, extra highly effective, and extra skilled countryman. It was the form of ambition we as followers demand of younger prospects and it killed him. You possibly can name it an honorable demise, the type blowhards declare to crave in pre-fight hype reels, but it surely killed him all the identical.
There have been no safeguards, or no less than ones acceptable to fighters and followers, that would have prevented this. Anaguchi continued to battle, and battle nicely, till the ultimate bell.
We knew he may die within the ring. No person may neglect the Maxim Dadashevs, Duk-koo Kims, and Benny Parets that got here earlier than, however that data can’t be an summary. It could possibly’t be a statistic to you, just a few caveat you acknowledge every so often to point out that you just’re an enlightened fan and never merely bloodthirsty. By no means let your self get numb to it.
