Age no problem, says comeback fighter
Choi Yong-soo at Keuk Dong Western Boxing Gym in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul / Korea Times photo by Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
He is 44, but boxer Choi Yong-soo, who is making a comeback after a 13-year hiatus, does not want to be compared to ordinary men in their 40s.
He also sneered at recent media reports that glamorized his comeback as a crusader’s pioneering challenge to encourage people of his age who are struggling to have hope.
For him, his upcoming fight against Japan’s Kazuya Nakano, 14 years younger and a southpaw, is simply driven by his guts and ambition as a pugilist.
“I’m going to be honest here,” said the former World Boxing Association world champion. “I fight for myself. And winning is all that matters to me. If the reports were true, then what is my loss to the middle-people? Should they give up their lives if I lose?
“Of course it would be good if my fight satisfies the people as well as many young despondent adults who now have a hard time finding jobs. But many local reports about my comeback kept blabbering about my old age and referring to me as a crusader for the middle-aged.”
Maybe the news outlets were too conscious about his age, because for him, the number does not matter. Neither did it matter when he debuted in the kickboxing-platform martial arts league K1 in 2006, aged 35, after retiring from boxing in 2003. He recorded three consecutive wins, including a knock-out against Swedish kickboxer Driton Rama.
After losing to Japan’s Masato Kobayashi in December 2007, he left K1 with an expired contract.
“I was handicapped because I didn’t use my legs during the league,” Choi said. “But my age and physical strength certainly didn’t trouble me back then.”
Choi did not want his year-long K1 career to be his last. The boxer-to-the-bone wanted to retire as a boxer and has returned to preserve his legacy.
Choi debuted as a professional boxer in 1990 at age 18. Three years into the career, he won the Orient and Pacific Boxing Federation super featherweight and, in 1995, became WBA super featherweight champion when he knocked out Victor Hugo Paz from Argentina. He defended the title seven times until 1998 when he lost to Japan’s Takanori Hatakeyama.
Failing to win a world title in a World Boxing Council super featherweight title match against Thailand’s Sirimongkol Singwangcha in 2003, he announced his retirement from boxing. His boxing record was 29 wins, one draw and four losses.
Choi fights Orlando Soto from Panama in his second WBA super featherweight champion title defence on Jeju Island, S. Korea, in May 1996. / Korea Times
Choi will fight Nakano on Apr. 9 in the city of Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, his hometown.
“Right now I’m slowly cutting down weight,” Choi said. “The match is not for another two weeks so I’m not so stressed out about it. It was hard to find a southpaw sparring partner here in Korea.”
He is now training with two left-handed fighters at Keuk Dong Western Boxing Gym in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, with his coach Kim Chun-seok, who has been with him throughout his boxing career.
He scoffed at a media report early this month that said he fought Japanese because most Korean boxers were somehow reluctant to fight “a former world champion in his mid-40s.” “I guess they must be shy,” Choi said with a laugh.
Amid mixed martial art fights’ domineering global popularity, the father of two, who lives in the city of Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, said Korean boxing still enjoys a pool of ardent followers. He expressed belief that the sport loved by generations from the 1960s until the early 1990s would someday break away from the present low level of nationwide popularity.
“Public popularity about a certain sport has never remained the same, but shifted to a different sport,” Choi said. “Likewise, Korean professional boxing is only going through a temporary setback.
“The sport cannot fall any further ― the only way to go is up. Besides, it will never disappear. Who doesn’t like to watch people fight?”