page_title: Boxing in Japan
section_title: Boxing fatalities
hierarchical_section_title: Boxing in Japan / Boxing fatalities
caption_attribution_description: English: The number of fatalities in Japan's boxing, 1952–2012. The numbers include six deaths before 1952. Boxers who died after being in a coma for several years after the fatal fight are included in the year the fight happened.
context_page_description: The history of boxing in Japan began in 1854 when Matthew Perry landed at Shimoda, Shizuoka soon after the Convention of Kanagawa. At that time, American sailors often engaged in sparring matches on board their ships, with their fists wrapped in thin leather. It was the first example of boxing conveyed to Japan. In addition, an ōzeki-ranked sumo wrestler named Tsunekichi Koyanagi was summoned by the shogunate, and ordered to fight a boxer and a wrestler from the United States. There were three fought matches, using different martial arts' styles, before Perry and other spectators. Koyanagi reportedly won.
context_section_description: From 1950 through 2011, Tokyo was the city with the most boxing fatalities in the world. After the JBC's inception in April 1952, thirty-eight Japanese professional boxers died from the injury sustained in the fight. In 1973, one boxer among them died after an eighth-round knockout loss in a super featherweight ten-round bout in Agana, Guam. He is the only Japanese who died outside of his home country.
  There were six fatal accidents before that. First, an African American died of athlete's heart after an exhibition match in Yokohama in 1902. The first Japanese fatality was the former national lightweight champion, Nobuo Kobayashi. He never regained consciousness after a ninth-round technical knockout loss at the Koshien tennis court in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo in 1930.
  After the year 1952, five Japanese amateur boxers and two Thai professional boxers died due to a fight in Japan. In addition, one Japanese amateur boxer died of cerebral hemorrhage after the test for a professional boxer's license, and one Japanese professional boxer suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage during a sparring session. The thirty-eighth victim under the JBC's professional regulations and rules, and the fifty-third in total, died of subdural hematoma seventeen days after his first professional bout against another debutant.
caption: The number of fatalities in Japan's boxing, 1952–2013. The numbers include six deaths before 1952. Boxers who died after being in a coma for more than one year after the fatal fight are counted in the year the fight happened.
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