Kosei Tanaka: record, next fight and profile →
Kosei Tanaka announced Thursday he will make the first defense of his WBO flyweight title on March 16 in Gifu against compatriot and former light flyweight title holder Ryoichi Taguchi.
By Thomas Gerbasi - On paper, it may look easy. Three titles in three weight classes in 12 fights, all at the age of 23. But that’s not the way it’s gone for Kosei Tanaka, who had visited the deck twice and gone through hell with Rangsan Chayanram en route to his perfect record. And that was all before he earned that thi...
Photos Gallery from Panama - Results: WBO Convention Awards Gala at the Hotel El Panama in Panama City. Next year's WBO Convention will take place in Tokyo, Japan.
Takeda Teva Ocean Arena, Nagoya - In what became an absolute war from start to finish, Kosei Tanaka (12-0, 7 KOs) became a three division world champion with a twelve round majority decision over Sho Kimura (17-2-2, 10 KOs) to capture the WBO flyweight world title.
Two-division champion Kosei Tanaka announced Tuesday he will challenge Sho Kimura for the World Boxing Organization flyweight belt in an all-Japanese showdown on Sept 24. The 11-0 Tanaka, who has previously held the WBO light flyweight and minimumweight belts, will aim to add a third title at Kimura's expense when the two meet at Nagoya's Takeda Teva Ocean Arena.
On Saturday night, at the International Conference Hall in the city of Nagoya, the capital of the province of Aichi, former WBC super bantamweight champion Kiyoshi Hatanaka, 51 years of age and the president of Hatanaka Boxing Gym of Nagoya, staged a big card.
Former World Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Kosei Tanaka said Tuesday he will fight Filipino Ronnie Baldonado in a non-title bout on March 31 in Nagoya. Tanaka, who relinquished his WBO crown last December in order to move up a weight class, will be making his first appearance at flyweight against Baldonado.
Kosei Tanaka has returned his World Boxing Organization light flyweight championship belt and will move up to the flyweight division he announced Wednesday. “I want to do my best on a new note in the flyweight class,” Tanaka told a press conference in Nagoya. “There is no way I could keep weight off anymore for light flyweight.”
World Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Kosei Tanaka has returned his title, an informed source said Friday. The 22-year-old will likely aim for his third WBO title by moving to the flyweight class after capturing the minimumweight title in 2015 and the flyweight belt last December.
World Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Kosei Tanaka has been diagnosed with fractures in both his eye sockets and will need two months to make a full recovery. The head of Tanaka’s gym, Kiyoshi Hatanaka, said in an interview that the 22-year-old, who sustained the injuries defending his title on Sept. 13, has been banned from sparring for three months, dashing hopes of taking on compatriot and World Boxing Association light flyweight Ryoichi Taguchi in a unification bout before the end of the year.