By Elliot Worsell
IT may very nicely be an age factor. Both that or an growing want for and appreciation of sleep. No matter it’s, the prospect of watching boxing from Japan on the splendidly civilised hour of 11am has turn into not solely an increasing number of interesting however now additionally seems to symbolize one of the simplest ways to look at the game and do justice to the motion contained in the ring.
This thought arrived on Saturday (February 24) – someplace between 11 and 12 o’clock – and was largely impressed by the performances of Junto Nakatani and Takuma Inoue, each of whom gained bantamweight world title fights on the identical invoice in Tokyo. To see their fights finish in surprisingly dramatic style – Nakatani stopped Alexandro Santiago in six rounds, and Inoue stopped Jerwin Ancajas in 9 – was one factor, however even higher was the truth that each fights had been wrapped up by 1pm, UK time.
Certainly, so accustomed have we turn into to associating the act of watching boxing with fatigue, I used to be nearly uncertain what to do after watching all of the combating conclude on Saturday. Not like when watching fights from the US, I hadn’t interrupted my sleep to look at boxers via eyes I hoped would keep open for the length. Nor, as is the case when watching UK fights, had I impatiently waited up half the evening within the hope the primary occasion would each start and end earlier than midnight.
As an alternative, due to the time distinction, I had managed to look at some elite-level boxing with the remainder of the day nonetheless forward of me. Additionally, I felt I had a far larger appreciation of what I had really watched – the small print, the intricacies – by advantage of getting noticed it via comparatively contemporary eyes and with a transparent thoughts. Gone, you see, was any of the resentment you generally expertise when both waking up for a battle or ready up for one. Gone, too, had been the myriad distractions you usually expertise when attending a battle, in addition to the necessity to continually examine prepare occasions to make sure you may get residence on the finish of all of it.
Junto Nakatani in motion
That’s to not say watching a dodgy stream of an occasion from Japan is preferable to attending fights in individual, however actually for UK boxing followers there’s a actual thrill to the consolation of watching boxing from Japan these days. That is true of watching not solely somebody like Nakatani, who’s quick turning into one in all their huge stars, but in addition after all Naoya Inoue, the most important star of all of them, who has been repeatedly brutalising opponents whereas boxing followers within the UK determine what constitutes brunch.
On Boxing Day, in actual fact, many people may have watched Inoue cease Marlon Tapales in spectacular model; a present sullied solely by the tragic flip taken by an earlier battle between Seiya Tsutsumi and the late Kazuki Anaguchi. There was additionally that balmy morning in July when Inoue ran via fellow champion Stephen Fulton as if the unbeaten American was an opponent like every other. Then, to return even additional, how can anybody overlook the traditional 2019 battle between Inoue and Nonito Donaire, which happened at Thursday lunchtime within the UK and firmly cemented Inoue’s repute as a can’t-miss fighter, particularly when, for us, the enjoyment of watching him doesn’t come on the expense of an excellent evening’s sleep.
There’s something extra to it than simply sleep, too, by the best way. With Japanese boxing, there may be, it appears, a sort of high quality assure, for not often do the massive fights there ever disappoint. If, for instance, you’re not watching Inoue break faces and new floor, or Nakatani rise via the weights, you may as an alternative be handled to boxers like Kenshiro Teraji or Kazuto Ioka in motion. Or Kosei Tanaka. Or Seigo Yuri Akui. Or the 105-pound Shigeoka brothers (Yudai and Ginjiro).
Whoever performs, by no means is the motion from Japan something lower than pulsating and by no means is the standard something apart from elite. That they then ship the motion to the soundtrack of silence – so quiet are Japanese crowds – solely serves to make the expertise of watching these occasions all of the extra surreal and in some methods pleasurable. In any case, with the noise faraway from the spectacle – each of the followers and the hype males – you might be basically gifted boxing in its purest type: two extremely expert and infrequently competitively matched boxers making an attempt to outdo each other with energy and smarts.
Merely put, to look at boxing from Japan earlier than noon within the UK is to just about get every part you need from the game whereas on the similar time eradicating every part you would, in a really perfect world, do with out. You see the very best on this planet carry out and might then choose them with out being instructed what to assume or what to really feel by hyperactive pundits or commentators desirous to current the popular model of occasions for both their boss or promoter. All you might be left with in the long run is the boxing, the motion, the stuff that basically issues. Higher but, within the strategy of watching it unfold you’re feeling contemporary, invigorated, even perhaps impressed. You’re alert, awake. It feels nearly like a dream; too good to be true.
