By Joe Koizumi

In boxing, the eye is a vulnerable spot along with chin, jaw, temple, neck under the ear, liver, stomach, solar plexus, side of body etc. The reason why the eye is an untold and unwritten vital point might be not to make boxing look like a dangerous art of fighting. In Japan, it is common that an illustration of the above-written vulnerable spots is put on the wall of a gym. The eye, however, isn’t included in those vital points in boxing. What do I want to say? Simple. Even though we, in boxing, don’t openly say that the eye is a weakness of a boxer, trainers must coach your boxers how to protect their eyes more positively and more effectively. How? To more and more utilize ducking, head slipping, swaying back, turning/rotating the head, etc.. We have witnessed too many optical damages happening in boxing bouts, so boxing coaches should tell your boxers to protect their eyes with more skills, should we proclaim our sport to be Sweet Science.

This is a report on the Japanese lightweight title bout on Saturday (December 7) in Tokyo. On the same day, though there was a time difference, Phoenix, Arizona, saw former champ Robeisy Ramirez quit midway in round six against WBO featherweight ruler Rafael Espinoza in their rematch. The loser suddenly complained of his eye pain to be unable to go on. He was a TKO loser caused by the eye damage regardless of by a punch or by an elbow.

Japanese lightweight titlist IBF#9 Hironori Mishiro (17-1-1, 6 KOs), 134.5, was awarded a technical knockout win over JBC#3 ex-WBC youth champ Hinata Maruta (14-3-1, 10 KOs), 134.5, who very abruptly said “no mas” on the stool after the sixth round in a competitive ten. Both were good jabbers, but Mishiro proved more accurate and more effective in exchanging jabs throughout six rounds. After the fifth, the open scoring system identically indicated all 49-46 in favor of the champ. We wondered what happened in Maruta’s corner after the fatal sixth. Maruta confessed afterward that he felt a severe eye pain (most probably because of an orbital floor fracture or blowout fracture) caused by the champ’s sharper jabs (exactly return jabs as shown by Ken Norton against Muhammad Ali in their first encounter in 1973). In swapping jabs Mishiro showed better defense against the challenger’s left hand, while Maruta absorbed more jabs from the champ without proper defensive technique. That’s the difference of win and loss.

If you are a good trainer, you are hoped to coach your boxer how to protect his eye with repeated training. That’s the point of this report. My partner photographer Naoki Fukuda is now in Germany to attend the WBC Convention, so no photos are attached hereto.