First World Champion by Country listed

By Joe Koizumi
Photos by Boxing Beat

It was May 19, 1952, exactly sixty-nine years ago, that challenger Yoshio Shirai became the very first Japanese boxer to acquire the world championship. Shirai dethroned undisputed flyweight champ Dado Marino, from Hawaii, over fifteen hard-fought rounds at the Korakuen Baseball Stadium, Tokyo.

After World War II was over, our defeated nation was so materially and mentally devastated that our people then completely lost confidence, energy, and zip.  Under such miserable circumstances, there abruptly appeared a new fistic hero named Yoshio Shirai, who now went to have an ambitious crack at the world belt against the highly regarded Marino.  No less than some 40,000 spectators gathered at the Stadium to watch the first world title bout ever held in Japan, while a radio ratio marked a record-high 83% (there was no television at that time).

People earnestly wished for Shirai’s victory.  Yoshio impressively won the belt by a unanimous decision (149-145, 146-139, 149-146) to have all the crowd emotionally burst into applause.  Shirai’s coronation, in a sense, effectively motivated our people to re-construct our nation from a burnt-out field.

Every country might have such an emotional moment upon its first world champion’s coronation.  This historian, therefore, hereby lists up the first champs in the respective countries, as shown by an attached table.  The data up to 2007 were originally presented by a highly respected record-keeper Bob Yalen, and they have been updated by yours truly thanks to extensive BoxRec record compilation, as shown below:

Each champion’s nationality, in principle, is hereby classified based on his birthplace.  Marcel Cerdan is regarded as an Algerian, not as a Frenchman, since he was born in Sidi Bel-Abbes, Algeria.  If born in Moi, Norway, Pete Sanstol (96-6-8, 27 KOs), a very excellent bantamweight champion who won the belt in 1931, is regarded as a Norwegian in this list though he campaigned during his career in Brooklyn, New York.  His nationality was Norway, not US.

We acknowledge there were a great many immigrants into the US from Europe, Ireland or Russia before the twentieth century commenced, but this list respects the birthplaces before their immigrations.

However, this list contains some contradiction such as the original Joe Walcott, the only 5’1.5” standing welterweight champion called Barbados Demon in the beginning of the twentieth century, who was actually born in Georgetown, Guyana and later moved to Barbados to live there for some years before going to the US.

Joe Walcott, therefore, should be exactly treated as the first world champ born from Guyana, but his nickname of Barbados Demon has been so famous and popular in ring history that this observer dare to list Walcott as the first out of Barbados (though he lived just for years).  Then, Dennis Andries is regarded as the first champ born in Guyana in this list.

 Denny Harrington, listed up as the first Irishman who seized the world championship, won a bout for the world “154-pound” middleweight title in 1878, and won another for the world “164-pound” middleweight title next year.  Why did they tolerate a ten-pound difference of weight for the same so-called middleweight title?  It was supposed that, at that time, the contract weight might be so flexibly changed upon both parties’ agreements.

Hugo Kelly (AKA Ugo Micheli), regarded as the first Italian world claimant, was born in Florence, Toscana, Italy.  Kelly, in 1905, dethroned Philadelphia Jack O’Brien’s middleweight title in accordance with BBBC Boxing Yearbook 2005, according to BoxRec.

This Japanese historian wishes to keep talking on their records all night.  But time and space is limited.  In the end, I present you a good example.   Fast-rising baseball star Shohei Ohtani of Los Angeles Angels resides and campaigns for years in California, but he is a Japanese player and should be regarded as a Nipponese.