Shinsuke Yamanaka

A few years ago the Bantamweight division looked like "the division" of the lower weights with the likes of Anselmo Moreno, Nonito Donaire, Joseph Agbeko, Abner Mares, Vic Darchinyan, Yonnhy Perez and Fernando Montiel. Sadly however many of those fighters have have moved up to Super Bantamweight and left the 118lb division looking rather empty.

Despite the fact the division currently has a notable lack of well known names, the division doesn't lack talent. At the moment the obvious rising star of the division is Leo Santa Cruz (21-0-1, 12) the current IBF champion, however perhaps the most under-rated fighter in the division is Japanese warrior Shinsuke Yamanaka (18-0-2, 13), the current WBC champion.

Despite being aged 30 it's only in the past 2 years or so that anyone in boxing has started talking about Yamanaka. Sadly part of this issue is down to the fact Yamanaka didn't make his professional debut until 2006 however this is also why Yamanaka has been so impressive, he has risen up the rankings amazingly quickly and become world champion inside 6 years!

On his debut Yamanaka defeated the much more experienced Hitoshi Takahashi (UD6) before drawing in his second contest with Keiji Yokomakura. By the end end of 2006 he had moved to 2-0-1, stopping Yuta Sato in his final bout of the year.

Over the following few years Yamanaka would continue his career scoring a number of victories over lesser opponents as well as suffering his second draw, this time to Kenichi Yamaguchi (over 8 rounds). By the end of 2009 he had moved well to 10-0-2 (6) though had still been with out a notable victory, in fact his best opponent up to this point was Toyoto Shiraishi, way back in 2007 (in Yamanaka's 6th bout), however 2010 would be the start of Yamanaka's break out.

After blowing out the over matched Kazuharu Morimoto (KO1) in his first bout of 2010, Yamanaka would face the then Japanese Bantamweight champion Mikio Yasuda. Yasuda had claimed the title just 1 fight earlier, defeating Takuro Kodama for the then vacant title, and sadly for Yasuda his reign would end rather quickly, with Yamanaka stopping him in round 7 to claim his first professional title.

Yamanaka would end 2010 with a none title victory over Jose Silveira, though in 2011 he was part of one of the "Asian Fight of The Year" contenders as he faced the then 8-0 upstart Ryosuke Iwasa in an all action war that saw Iwasa finally stopped in the 10th round. The Iwasa bout, Yamanaka's one and only Japanese Bantamweight defense, was spoken about glowingly across almost every boxing forum as Yamanaka suddenly became a hit.

In late 2011 Nonito Donaire made it clear he was wanting to move to Super Bantamweight and he decided vacate his WBC and WBO Bantamweight titles. By now Yamanaka was very highly ranked by the WBC and so was given a chance to claim the vacant title, however to claim the title Yamanaka would have to defeat Christian Esquivel, who had been unbeaten in 3 years. Yamanaka and Esquivel waged war on each other with Yamanaka scoring a knock down in round 6 and being dropped himself the following round before slowly wearing down Esquivel and stopping him in the 11th round to claim the belt.

Since winning the WBC world title Yamanaka has made 3 defenses, out pointing the always exciting Vic Darchinyan, and stopping both Tomas Rojas and Malcolm Tunacao.