Yohei Tobe

Even thought it is rare for me to talk about Japanese fighters on this blog Yohei Tobe is a fighter I simply cannot shut up about. The 24 year old Bantamweight was a former two-time national amateur champion before turning professional in February 2011. On his debut he made an immediate impact by stopping the Korean Super Flyweight champion Jin-Ki Jung in just 70 seconds. Just 4 months later Tobe would fight in his second bout when he took on the experienced Wandee Singwancha (who entered with a record of 66-13-1, 17KO's). Singwancha had been WBC interim champion at both Minimumweight and Light Flyweight and despite fighting above his best weight it was still hugely impressive that Tobe took him out at 1:58 of the second round.

Whilst Tobe's first 2 victories were impressive it was his 3rd professional contest that has really got the hardcore boxing fans excited as Tobe faced. In October Tobe faced the very tough Kohei Kono, a 2-time world title challenger who had lost a close to Nobuo Nashiro and a wider loss to Tomas Rojas. Although Kono, at 30 was the more experienced fighter he was made to look amateurish at times as he charged in only to be caught by uppercuts and jabs by the intelligent and much taller Tobe who took a close but unanimous decision over 8 rounds.

Whilst Tobe's 2011 has been an amazing rise from amateur star to genuinely exciting prospect whats maybe most amazing is that Tobe is currently ranked at #22 with the WBC after just 3 fights!

Tobe is one of the 11 boxers on the list of prospects to watch in 2012, and is arguably the most exciting addition to the list. If Tobe can continue his rise in 2012 we may well see him challenging the likes of Koki Kameda (the WBA Bantamweight champion) or dropping down to Super Flyweight (the division where we will likely see him competing in the short term) and facing Tomonobu Shimizu (the WBA Super Flyweight champion) in an all Japanese world title fight.

The footage of Tobe's first two professional bouts are below thanks to ibatetsu1





If you would like to follow Yohei on boxrec his record can be found here