Tadashi Sawamura

Tadashi Sawamura (沢村 忠) was a Japanese kickboxer whose real name was Hideki Shiraha (白羽 秀樹).

He is often credited with sparking the "Shōwa era kickboxing boom", being one of the era's most popular Japanese fighters, and enjoying great fame throughout his career.

Hideki Shiraha was born in Manchukuo in 1943.

In his youth, he studied Gōjū-ryū-style Karate and some Chinese Martial Arts from his grandfather.

As a child, he was part of a children's theater company called "Theatrical Company Broad Bean" (gekidan sora mame - 劇団そらまめ), with aspirations of becoming an actor in the future.

When he was in the third year of junior high school, he was scouted to Shintoho Studios as part of their "Shintoho Starlet" program.

He had appeared in TV dramas under the stage name "Tetsuya Shiro", but due to the bankruptcy of Shintoho, he was forced to suspend his career in the entertainment industry.

Subsequently, he graduated from Hosei University Junior and Senior High School and joined Daiei Film Company.

He enrolled in the Film Department of Nihon University College of Art as part of his training at Daiei.

Around this time, he seemed to had given up his career as an actor and pursued to become a screenwriter.

On the other hand, he had also joined the Goju-ryu Karate Club at university and won the All Japan Student Championship while he was still in school.

He was undefeated in 60 fights.

In 1963 there was a competitive match between leading Japanese and Thai instructors, a karate vs Muay Thai tournament.

Japan won the series although two of the Japanese participants Osamu Noguchi and Tatsuo Yamada wanted to create a full-contact sport similar to how Muay Thai is a sport in Thailand, and they started to create kickboxing.

Shiraha came to attention of Osamu Noguchi, who praised Shiraha's ability.

Noguchi had invited Shiraha to pursue kickboxing, telling Shihara that "the sports version of karate doesn't have the training to win in a full-contact fight" and that "[Shiraha] would lose if he traveled to Thailand to compete in full-contact".

Shiraha eventually left Daiei Film Company at the same time as graduating from college and started training at the Noguchi Gym.

The ring name was chosen after Kyokushin fighter Tadashi Nakamura, who defeated a Muay Thai fighter by KO at Lumpinee Stadium in 1964 as a representative of Japan and Karate.

Sawamura's debut match held at the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium was a match called "Karate vs. Muay Thai" and won by 2nd Round KO over "Rākurei shīhāman" (ラークレイ・シーハーマン).

The Japan Kickboxing Association was launched in April 1966, with Shiraha debuting as a professional kickboxer on April 11, 1966, under the ring name "Tadashi Sawamura".

In June 1966, he fought against Muay Thai fighter Samarn Sor Adisorn, who was ranked #8 at Lumpinee's featherweight division, at the Riki Palace.

At that time, it was popular on the covers of several general magazines such as "Weekly Shonen Champion" (Akita Shoten) first issue in 1969 and "Weekly Shonen Magazine" (1968 issue 47).

In 1973, he awarded the Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize.

The final match was held on July 2, 1977, and the retirement ceremony was held on October 10, the following year.

His final record was 241 fights, 232 wins (228KO), 5 losses and 4 draws.

After his retirement, he broke all ties with his martial arts world and focused on managing his automobile repair company in Tokyo.

Hideki Shiraha died at a hospital in Chiba prefecture on March 26, 2021, at 78 years old.

It was discovered that he had lung cancer and that it had progressed to a state where Shiraha was experiencing bloody sputum.

He diagnosed in the summer of the previous year and had been medical treatment since.

His funeral was held by his immediate family.

Sawamura is domestically regarded as the sport's great champions and helped increase Kickboxing's international profile, retiring with over 200 knockouts.

While credited as one of the drivers of the Shōwa era kickboxing boom, his retirement in 1977 caused immediate ripples to be felt in Japanese Kickboxing world.

Notably, the Japan Kickboxing Association fell into disarray, which resulted in various groups splitting away from it.

In 1984, its remnants were absorbed by the Japan Kickboxing Federation (NKB).

Sawamura had an exceptionally high knockout percentage of 94.60% in combat sports.

For comparison, in heavyweight boxing the two highest knockout percentages are 87.76% by Rocky Marciano and 87.23% by Vitali Klitschko.

Sawamura lost by 4th Round KO and during the fight, was knocked down to the mat 16 times during the fight (with some reporting 19 times) and received more than 25 bruises from the fight.

Disheartened, Sawamura wanted to retrain himself in jujutsu and hold a rematch.

Noguchi met with Sawamura while he was healing, and suggested that Sawamura should be trained in kickboxing proper.

Sawamura begins training in Kickboxing and turns his career around, starting to rack up KO wins with moves like "vacuum jump knee kick" (真空飛び膝蹴り - Shinkū tobihizageri) and "kick before jump" (飛び前蹴り - Tobi maegeri).