Ippo Makunouchi
( Early Life )
Not much is known about Ippo's early life, except for his childhood when his father died in a boat accident. Like at the present Ippo was a very shy, kind and obedient kid. He was also very strong willed and stubborn. During the time when his father (Kazuo) was missing out in the sea, Ippo went everyday to the shore to wait for his return. He believed his father's words that upon his return he will never leave Ippo and Hiroko again. Although his father never returned, Ippo was somehow able to satisfy himself that his father fulfilled his promise by finding the cap he wears during his father's departure. After his father died he was raised by his mother Hiroko and grew up assisting her with the family fishing boat business. He was originally supposed to take over the business from her, but she decided to postpone it until after his boxing career is over. When she was hospitalized after collapsing from overwork, Ippo considered retiring from boxing to run the business, but Umezawa asked Ippo to let him take over so Ippo could continue boxing.
( "High School and Pro Debut" )
When he was being tormented by Umezawa and his gang, Ippo was saved by Takamura (who was in the middle of his Road Work at the time). After that chance meeting he began to take up boxing in order to learn what it means to be strong. After joining the Kamogawa Boxing Gym, he meets Miyata Ichirou and has 2 sparring matches against him. In the first match Ippo displays his impressive stamina but is defeated; in the second fight, however, Ippo manages to uppercut Miyata's jaw and gains a surprising KO victory. Because of this Miyata leaves the gym in order to face Ippo again in the Pro Ring, and thus ignites their rivalry. Ippo eventually passes the pro-boxer license exam with ease. After the test, he meets Mashiba Ryou who is in the same weight class as him. Mashiba advises Ippo to move to another weight class, but Ippo refuses, seeking to fulfill his promise to Miyata to battle again in the rookie kings tournament.
( "Pro-Debut Match: Oda Yusuke" )
Oda Yusuke is Ippo's opponent for his pro debut. He was largely regarded as a lazy and unmotivated boxer, but when his girlfriend threatened to break up with him, he put his heart into the fight. Though he lost, he regained his passion for boxing and his girlfriend stayed with him.
( "Second Match: Fujiwara Yoshio" )
Fujiwara Yoshio is a boxer with no eyebrows. He went in intending to exploit Ippo's poor guard, only to discover Ippo had adopted the Peek-a-Boo Style. He resorts to headbutting. Ippo headbutts him back, then proceeds to knock him out. Umezawa's gang attends this match to see if Ippo really had become a pro. They became subsequent fans of Ippo and would return for many more, including those on his journey through the Rookie Kings.
( "Rookie King Tournament" )
After winning two fights upon his debut as a pro-boxer, Coach Kamogawa enlisted Ippo in the East Japan Rookie King Tournament. Ippo also had his personal goal in the tournament to fight with Miyata in the Pro Ring for their tie-breaker match. With this promise in mind Ippo aims to reach the East Japan finals.
( "First Round: Jason Ozuma" )
Ozuma is a black officer from America who was stationed in Japan, and the only black boxer Ippo has faced so far. Jason is a very polite and kind man who cares greatly for his gym and friends. His most revered attacks, his devastating Hooks, are comparable to Takamura's in terms of speed. Ippo had to enter an in fight to win the first round. Ippo took major hits, but managed to turn the match around by pressuring Ozuma with his power. After an intense round, Ippo managed to take advantage of Ozuma's wide swing and his delayed punch, due to a broken rib, to deliver a second down and win the match.
( "Second Round: Kobashi Kenta" )
Kobashi Kenta is a boxer that depends on winning with points. Ippo is annoyed by Kobashi's technique, which is to clinch often; eventually Kobashi's strategy, to rob Ippo of his stamina, takes effect. However, in the final round (the 4th round), Kobashi punches Ippo with a counter and becomes excited at the prospect of landing a KO on Ippo. Even though his second disapproved, his desire to gain a KO victory lead him to fight head-on, but Ippo took his chance the instant Kobashi stepped outside the pure, no-risk outboxing and KO'ed him.
( "Semi-final Round: Hayami Ryuuichi" )
A pretty boy boxer who held the title of Inter High Champion with his fast barrage of punches called the Shotgun and Ippo's first opponent as an out boxer. Hayami looked down upon Ippo, and dismissed him since he felt Ippo was an unworthy opponent. Hayami's strategy uses a short uppercut against dashing infighters and finishes them with his Shotgun. Ippo, however, manages to counter him by using a cross hook counter against his short uppercut, and sees through the storm of punches. Having finally mastered bobbing and weaving at the training camp, he was able to avoid and get close to Hayami. Ippo finished the fight with a rush followed by an uppercut to win the fight in 1 round moving to the finals.
( "East Japan Final Round: Mashiba Ryou" )
Ippo's final opponent in the East Japan Rookie King tournament defeated Miyata with a controversial foul and seemed poised to take the Rookie King Title. Ippo met Mashiba at his pro license exam, and has since been afraid of his dark demeanor throughout most of the series (albeit comically), but after witnessing Mashiba's foul, Ippo goes into the match determined to win. Initially, Mashiba's flicker jabs exploited Ippo's short reach by keeping him at bay, but Ippo eventually slipped in, broke Mashiba's elbow (at the expense of his right hand), and slugged it out with him. Ippo gave Mashiba his first and only legitimate black star in the form of a heavy and painful K.O victory.
( "All Japan Final Round: Sendou Takeshi" )
Since Ippo had broken his fist, the All Japan Round didn't seem like a possibility, but when Ippo met Sendou, the West Japan Rookie King, in person, he decided to go ahead with the fight. He received therapy from Doctor Yamaguchi which allowed him to fight with a proper hand. The match was an intense slug-fight which ended abruptly before the fourth round when Sendou turned out to be unconscious in his corner, despite still sitting upright looking ready to continue.
( "Championship Road" )
After winning the All Japan Rookie Tournament, Ippo found that his rival Miyata was going overseas. Ippo was left with no current goal to motivate him. Rehabilitating his hand injured from his previous fight, Ippo breaks from training and starts supporting his fellow boxers at Kamogawa Gym in their fights. He then meets the current National Feather Weight Champion Date Eiji, who hints that in the future they may face each other since Ippo is already ranked number 10 upon winning the Rookie King Tournament. Ippo realizes that he wants to fight the Champion and trains for his new challenge.
( "Rookie King vs. Rookie King: Okita Keigo" )
Okita is a kouhai (younger disciple of the same gym) of Date Eiji. He challenges Ippo to a fight because he was envious of the way Date fought against Ippo in their spar. He ends up relying too much on his corkscrew blow and trying to replicate Date's style as his own. Ippo defeats him in the 1st round and sets up his entry into the Class A tournament.
( "Class A Tournament Semi-Finals (1st Round): Saeki Takuma" )
A boxer renowned for his exceptionally fast footwork earning the nickname of "Speed Star", Saeki Takuma was then considered to be the fastest man in the featherweight class. Saeki proved to be a difficult opponent at first since Ippo had difficulty catching him, even at close range. Saeki grew to be a major problem when he cornered Ippo and then used his flicker jabs to swell Ippo's right eye (intentionally). Saeki controlled most of the match by staying in Ippo's blind spot and staying out of his line of sight using his speed. After Ippo managed to lean against Saeki by coincidence, he started to get the timing and Saeki's rhythm down, allowing Ippo to punch accurately within his blind spot and knock Saeki out of it. In one final rush, taking advantage of his slowed reactions due to the fear of feeling Ippo's punch, Saeki is knocked out cold.
( "Class A Tournament Finals: Alexander Volg Zangief" )
A russian fighter who is gentle by nature but switches into a wild beast who finishes his opponents as quickly as possible. Before the match Coach Ramada and Kamagawa had an interview meeting, resulting in a battle between the coaches and their boxing philosophies. Ippo manages to fight Volg longer than any of his previous opponents, but starts to endure major punches since Volg had much more refined techniques. Before the final blow, Volg runs out of stamina allowing Ippo to deliver his punches with little resistance. In the final round, Ippo and Volg enter a close range high hitting infight where they are forced to battle nonstop without breathing. After Ippo manages to avoid Volg's trademark White Fang, Volg ran out of air giving Ippo the chance to Gazelle Punch Volg's face for the victory.
( "First Japanese Featherweight Title Match: Date Eiji" )
After earning his right to challenge Date Eiji, one of Japan's most revered boxers, Ippo went into the match bringing everything he had learned in his past 10 matches with him. For the first few rounds he succeeded in pushing the champion to his limits. However, when Eiji began using the high-level Neck Spin to negate most of the power behind Ippo's punches, Ippo becomes disoriented. Eiji gradually returns to his style of fighting from his younger days. He delivers a powerful Heart Break Shot that stuns Ippo, then prepares to deliver the finishing blow. But the referee stops the match because Kamogawa had already thrown in the towel. Victory goes to Date Eiji. As of Volume 106, Date Eiji is the only boxer to have beaten--and furthermore, KO'd--Ippo.
( "Comeback Match: Ponchai Chuwatana" )
A Thai fighter ranked 3rd in Thailand who faces Ippo following his 5 month break against Date Eiji. Ponchai had a very well-built physique and a strong determination to win in his boxing matches. Ippo had no videos or info about his opponent so he didn't get to see who he was fighting until the day of the weigh in. Ippo's fight against Ponchai was even in the first round since Ponchai was able to use the Neck Twist to neutralize Ippo's power. However in the second round, Ippo starts to land small punches while swaying left and right, before speeding up and finishing Ponchai off with his new finishing move, the "Dempsey Roll." After this match, Sendou, the new featherweight champion, challenged Ippo to a match personally.
( "Second Japanese Featherweight Title Match: Sendou Takeshi" )
The continuation of the unfinished match between the hard punchers of East and West. Ippo and Sendou had been looking forward to a match since the All Japan Rookie Championship was unfinished in their minds. To prepare for the match they both strengthened their weaknesses through new training methods, Sendou improving his lower body and Ippo his upper body. This match is considered to be one of the most intense since both fighters had roughly the same amount of punching power resulting in numerous slug fests and a footstomp from the audience that shook the hall. Ippo originally had problems since he had a smaller body, meaning he had a little bit less muscle and was going to lose unless he started to connect more punches than Sendou did. But with encouragement from his friends and remembering his training he managed to continue his match against Sendou. The match turned into a mix up, where both fighters drew out the others' potential and helped each other grow stronger. With one final showdown between their signature finishers, Ippo managed to pull through and finish Sendou off by inventing a combo of his 3 strongest techniques to take the belt and title. Sendou then personally congratulated Ippo.
( Title Defenses as JBC Champion )
After obtaining the National Japanese Feather Weight Belt from Sendou, Ippo defended the title successfully for eight consecutive times.
( "First Title Defense: Sanada Kazuki" )
The former Japan junior featherweight champion moved up a weight class in order to challenge Ippo. With Hama Dankichi in his corner, he showcased a double uppercut nicknamed the "Hien" and the "Tsubame Gaeshi". He was able to remain standing for a moment after receiving the full Dempsey roll thanks to working the whole match on slowing Ippo down, but ultimately fell to the damage caused by it.
( "Second Title Defense: Hammer Nao" )
"Makunouchi Ippo Shock"
Ippo, shocked after seeing Naomichi's growth in a video since their last encounter. RaidoZeroAdded by RaidoZero. A former member of the Kamogawa Gym and former kouhai of Ippo, he dropped down from Junior Welterweight in order to get the chance to fight Ippo. Ippo tried to end the fight as quickly as possible so that Nao would not receive much damage, but Nao was able to last until the 2nd round through a series of subtly executed fouls and even landed his signature solar plexus shot. However, Ippo's strength and experience still proved too much to Nao, causing the latter to suffer a loss.
( "Third Title Defense: Yi Yonsu" )
Yonsu is the first opponent that Ippo has defeated in the first round as the Japanese Champion. Ippo promised to win this match in the first round so long as Takamura won the junior middleweight title match against Bryan Hawk later that night. He knocks Yonsu out with the Dempsey roll and afterwards gets scolded by the Coach for taking such a big risk so early in the fight.
( "Fourth Title Defense: Shimabukuro Iwao" )
Iwao is the only fighter Ippo has ever fought that was shorter (and arguably more powerful) than him. This was fight was also for the right to be called Japan's greatest infighter. In this fight Ippo uses a alot more boxing skill than usual, starting off the fight with heavy jabs and using light punches in the end to set up his strong punch which was then followed by the Dempsey roll. Iwao is the first fighter to break the dempsey roll with punches choosing to slug it out, it is successful the first time, but the Second one finishes the fight.
( "Fifth Title Defense: Sawamura Ryuuhei" )
Sawamura presented Ippo with his greatest challenge up to this point because he possessed an almost genius like sense for counterpunching. Combine that with a rugged toughness as well as a heavy jab and powerful straight right, Ippo is pushed very hard in this fight and reveals an evolved form of the Dempsey Roll, one with a sudden stop, to make the attack less predictable and more effective. It became an excellent way to fake out the counter-boxer, even though it took a large toll on Ippo's body. It should be noted that Sawamura had Ippo in serious trouble in the 4th round but instead of finishing it then he chose to do more damage to Ippo and that in turn back fired.
( "Sixth Title Defense: Karasawa Takuzou" )
Karasawa is a former Kouhai of Sanada, this fight showcases Ippo's growth against out boxers, he does not need to use the Dempsey roll, choosing instead to seal the technique so that he can use other methods to win matches and prolong his career. Karasawa has speed similar to Saeki and utilizes it early, but Ippo uses his experience to trap him in the corner and land punishing body blows which became even stronger due to his training of hammering logs into a hill. This is one of Ippo's cleanest fights, having not taken a single clean hit and winning the fight using mainly lefts.
( "Seventh Title Defense: Take Keiichi" )
Take is the most experienced boxer that Ippo had fought up to this point, as well as the first southpaw he ever fought in the pro ring and was someone that Date Eiji held in high regard. He uses Ippo's inexperience against southpaws to his advantage through out the fight, and fights in close so as to take away the power of Ippo's immense lower-body strength and rotations on his punches. Ippo turns the fight around by taking an even lower stance and using Take's game plan against him. The match ends in Take losing a slugfest after Take chooses not to open up a cut on Ippo's eye and choosing to go out as a proud boxer.
( "Eighth Title Defense: Kojima Hisato" )
Kojima Hisato is a boxer that is two weight classes above Ippo. He has OnepunchKO
One punch KO!insulted Ippo's opponents and even his coach, but later it is found out that he is a huge Ippo fan. His right arm is currently useless so he uses his left arm to gain a Japanese rank. He also claims to know Ippo's weakness. This was also a short match as Ippo knocks him out after recovering from Kojima's counter in the first round.
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( "Survival Match of Asian Champions" )
After yet another canceled fight with Ichiro Miyata, Ippo lost his drive and thought of retiring from boxing. However with the help of Iimura Mari and the words of his friends and previous opponent, he was able to find his true goal which is to become strong and went back to Kamogawa Gym to continue Boxing. Kamogawa then tells Ippo to aim for the World, but having them cut off the shortest route of getting to the top rankings by beating the OPBF Champ Miyata, Kamogawa tells Ippo that he will take a different path, which is to defeat all of the OPBF National Champions, obtaining their WBC rankings and becoming an unofficial OPBF Champion.
( "Against Thailand National Champion: Jimmy Sisphar" )
His first fight in this quest is against Sisphar, who earlier in the series was the first fighter to fall to Miyata's jolt counter. Ever since then, Sisphar had become a reckless pure offense infighter with many scars from head butts and infights, because of his many scars he earned the nickname Scratch J. He also developed a full body hook which he called his version of the jolt. In this fight Ippo is forced to add a new element to the Dempsey roll, an uppercut, that Sisphar could not counter because his full body Jolts went from a side to side motion and it left Sisphar open to uppercuts.
( "Against Philippine National Champion: Malcolm Gedo" )
This fight is his second in the challenging the OPBF championship series. This fight is set up when the 7th ranked japanese ranker, Fukui, defeated Malcolm Gedo in his hometown, but it was revealed that Gedo had thrown the fight in order to receive money, he did so without receiving any damage. This outraged coach Kamogawa and Ippo and in turn caused them to put 2 million yen (4 million yen total from each fighter) on the line so that Gedo would fight seriously, Gedo was adept at avoiding any significant damage from Ippo early on in the fight, and because he wore his left glove loose he was able to trick Ippo's depth perception by changing hand positions to create the illusion of an extending arm. Ippo overcame Gedo because of the results of his sparring with Mashiba Ryou. He is able to avoid a very critical uppercut thrown by Gedo and also overcame the Gedo's illusion when Gedo decided to switch to heavy punches, making his reach more easily read to Ippo.
( "Against Indonesian National Champion: Wally" )
his is the third fight in Ippo's challenge of the OBPF championship. It is set up by Miguel Zail, the former trainer of Bryan Hawk and an acquantance from Genji Kamogawa's past. Wally has only 3 fights in his resume before this bout, was a very difficult opponent for Ippo, because of his great talent for boxing which was beyond genius level. Despite getting knocked down early, Wally controls most of the match with his speed and instincts and because he was most effective in the corner Ippo had little choice but to aim for very weak, fast body shots to at least be able to touch him. However, the body shots have an unforeseen cumulative effect because they had all been aimed at the exactly same spot, which not even Ippo was aware of. They took away Wally's mobility which finally led to Ippo landing cleaner shots and finally a showdown in the corner in which Ippo traps Wally in the corner with the Dempsey Roll and eventually knocks him out. The match is considered to be one of the most intense fights for the two Oriental Pacific National boxing champions. It also showed that with enough hard work and dedication, even genius ability can be overcome. After the fight, Genji Kamogawa and Miguel Zale have a talk, and they understand that a rematch between their 2 fighters won't happen shortly, since the only reason Ippo won was because of his experience, but now there is no factor that can give him a chance for victory. Ippo's world ranking is 13 and his OPBF ranking is 1 before he begins the OPBF conquest. After defeating the three Asian champions, his world ranking has risen to 7.
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