Fujioka won five divisions. Koseki defended one belt 17 times.
On Oct. 10 the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame inducted both. Fujioka’s first belt was a fight the 2011 earthquake postponed. Koseki made 17 defenses at 102 pounds, then moved up.
Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on May 1, 2006, during a preliminary of the East Japan Rookie King tournament. Naoko Fujioka and Momo Koseki won world titles in this room in later years.
Photo: shibainu
The weigh-in was already underway in Tokyo when the earthquake hit. Naoko Fujioka was supposed to fight the next day, March 12, 2011, for her first world title. She is from Osaki, in Miyagi. The bout moved to May 8. Last Saturday, at the Orleans in Las Vegas, the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame inducted her with Momo Koseki.
She was 35 that night, in her sixth fight as a pro, against Mexico’s Anabel Ortiz. The belt was the WBC minimumweight title, 105 pounds. Ortiz did not come off her stool for the ninth round. Through eight, Fujioka was ahead on every card, 78-72. She told reporters that if becoming champion could give people in the disaster area even a little energy, that would be the best thing. On May 11 she was back in Osaki, handing the mayor about 190,000 yen: 100,000 from her purse, 50,000 from her supporters, and the rest from a collection taken at the show.
She had turned pro in 2009, already in her thirties. From there the titles went up, and then they came back down. Super flyweight first, then bantamweight at 118 pounds. In March 2017, at Korakuen Hall, she stopped Isabel Millan in the tenth for a vacant flyweight title and became the first Japanese boxer with world titles in four divisions. On Dec. 1 she dropped again and outpointed Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle for the vacant WBO light-flyweight belt. No Japanese boxer had won a fifth division. She retired in 2022 with a record of 19-3-1.
Koseki stayed with one belt. She lost her first try at the WBC atomweight title, then won the rematch in August 2008, knocking out Winyu Paradorngym in the second round at Korakuen. Atomweight is 102 pounds. She is a southpaw, and she kept making that weight. In August 2014 her fourteenth defense passed 13, the mark Yoko Gushiken had set at light flyweight in the late 1970s. For years, 13 was what a long Japanese reign got measured against.
The seventeenth defense came on Nov. 11, 2016, another night at Korakuen, a fourth-round stoppage of Chie Higano. She had held the belt since 2008. Afterward she said she might move up, to find a rival who could push her.
She did. On Dec. 17, 2017, in Fukuoka, she beat Yuko Kuroki by decision and took the WBC minimumweight title. Fujioka had won her fifth belt on the first of that month. Six weeks later, on Jan. 29, 2018, Koseki retired at 35 and handed both belts back. She said the Kuroki fight had been the last one, and that in April she would start school to become a physical therapist. The record was 24-2-1.
The photograph is Korakuen Hall on May 1, 2006, a rookie preliminary, the kind of undercard Korakuen runs all year. Fujioka won her first belt in that ring. Koseki won hers there too, in 2008. Last Saturday was the dinner.