Shinji Takehara

Shinji Takehara
Data
Birth Name	Shinji Takehara
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	Japan
birthday	January 25, 1972
place of birth	Hiroshima Prefecture
style	Left delivery
Combat Statistics
Struggles	25th
Victories	24
Knockout victories	18th
Defeats	1

Shinji Takehara ( Japanese 竹 原 慎 二 , Takehara Shinji ; born January 25, 1972 in Hiroshima Prefecture ) is a former Japanese professional boxer and former WBA world middleweight champion. He is Japan's first professional world champion in this weight class and remained the only middleweight title holder in Japan until October 2017, when Ryōta Murata was also able to fight for the WBA title.

Boxing career

Takehara made his professional debut on May 15, 1989 with a knockout victory in the fourth round against Masao Tadano. By July 1991 he won nine more fights, eight of which by knockout. On October 28, 1991 he was with a knockout victory in round 7 against Takehito Saijo (12-3), Japanese middleweight champion. He then defended the title with a knockout in the second round against Hisashi Teraji (6-0), with a knockout in the fifth round against Satoshi Yokozaki (8-10), and on points against Yoshinori Nishizawa (6- 5) and Biney Martin (11-1).

On May 24, 1993 he won by knockout in the twelfth round against the undefeated Sung Chun Lee, the Oriental-Pacific Championship ( OPBF ) in the middleweight division. He then played seven successful title defenses, five of them by knockout.

On December 19, 1995 he received a WBA world title chance in the middleweight division against the Argentine and huge favorite Jorge Fernando Castro (98-4, 68 knockout). Takehara clearly dominated the subsequent fight and had the defending champion on the ground before he was declared the unanimous point winner (116: 114, 118: 112, 117: 111) after the full twelve rounds. On June 24, 1996 he played his first title defense against the unbeaten American William Joppy (21-0, 17 knockout). Takehara had to admit defeat in the ninth round after a good performance; he was taken out of the fight by the referee after 2:29 minutes, after which he had to take heavy hits in the corner of the ring, almost unable to defend. He then resigned from active boxing.

Together with world boxing champion Takanori Hatakeyama , he opened a boxing and fitness club in Tokyo .

predecessor	Office	successor
Jorge Castro	World Middleweight Boxing Champion ( WBA ) December 19, 1995 - June 24, 1996	William Joppy

Web links

• Profile at BoxRec