Ye Joon Kim’s manager sees underdog spirit in orphan-come-contender
His manager Mika Altamura passionately backed Ye Joon Kim at the final press conference for his charge’s audacious challenge of Naoya Inoue.
South Korea’s Kim is a huge underdog and has the chance to record the upset of the year in the first major fight of 2025 when he meets Inoue on Friday at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
Kim accepted Friday’s fight at less than two weeks’ notice after Inoue’s original foe Sam Goodman had to withdraw having suffered a cut in sparring. Kim, already on the bill, was on standby, and he has a motivation that echoes back to 1970s light-heavyweight great Matthew Saad Muhammad.
Saad, one of the sport’s great warriors, was abandoned by his brother on the streets of Philadelphia when he was a small boy. Saad Muhammad, who first was known as Matt Franklin, grew up in an orphanage and eventually went into foster care, ensuring his life became an ongoing search for his identity and his family.
Kim was also an orphan, but he was never adopted. He has battled the odds his entire life, and next has a fight for the undisputed junior-featherweight title. The 32-year-old is 21-2 (13 KOs).
“Many of you wouldn’t know that Joon is an orphan,” said Altamura. “He was never adopted. He was undersized as a kid.
“He was viciously bullied throughout his upbringing and yet here he is, on the biggest stage of the world, from the orphanage to the undisputed world championship, and I think that that’s an incredible accomplishment and it speaks volumes about the kind of person he is.”
Altamura is a fight historian and knows all about Saad Muhammad’s unlikely story – from the streets of Philadelphia to the walls of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. The Australian knows Kim has a lot to do, too, but Altamura also recognises that Kim has already come through a lot to be there.
“Our message is to all the troubled kids in the world, to the orphans, I want you to know that there’s brighter days ahead,” he said. “You are loved, tomorrow the sun will rise, so never lose hope and this man right here is the embodiment of if you never lose hope, good things can happen in your lives.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.