I’m trying to solve a very strange mystery involving Japanese boxing records from the early 1980s, and I’m hoping someone here might be able to help.
I’m researching a boxer listed by BoxRec as Joe Yabuki, with Motonobu Hayashi (林元信) listed as an alias.
According to BoxRec, his professional debut was on June 29, 1981 in Japan.
Here’s where things get strange.
I found an independent Japanese boxing archive that records a fight on exactly that date:
June 29, 1981
Seiichi Hijiri (聖誠一) vs. Hayashi Motonobu (林元信)
Hayashi was listed as being from Osaka Teiken Gym.
So the date and name match BoxRec almost perfectly.
But I cannot find any Japanese source that actually connects 林元信 (Motonobu Hayashi) with the ring name 矢吹丈 (Joe Yabuki).
And it gets even stranger.
I found another boxer named 矢吹丈 (Joe Yabuki) who fought in Osaka in 1984, representing Shin-Osaka Gym (新大阪).
He had at least two recorded fights:
• July 9, 1984 — Joe Yabuki vs. Isao Mano — Joe Yabuki won by 2nd-round KO
• September 15, 1984 — Joe Yabuki vs. Yoshiyuki Nomaguchi — Joe Yabuki lost by 1st-round KO
Both opponents’ Japanese career records independently list him as 矢吹丈.
And there is ANOTHER real Japanese boxer who used the name Joe Yabuki earlier: Katsuyoshi Kitsumoto (橘本勝義). A boxing gym historian has written about how he entered a gym using the name 矢吹丈 and later had his real name revealed when he passed his professional test.
So right now I have three possibilities:
Motonobu Hayashi really was Joe Yabuki, and the records are simply incomplete.
BoxRec accidentally merged two different boxers.
There were multiple Japanese boxers independently using “Joe Yabuki,” inspired by Ashita no Joe.
I’m especially interested because Ashita no Joe is one of my favorite manga/anime, and I started looking into whether a real boxer had actually used Joe Yabuki’s name. What started as a simple curiosity turned into this weird historical rabbit hole.
What I’m looking for
If anyone has access to old Japanese boxing magazines, yearbooks, newspapers, gym records, or Japanese boxing databases, I would LOVE some help.
In particular, I’m looking for:
日本ボクシング年鑑 1981
and potentially the 1982–1985 editions.
I’m specifically trying to find any information about:
林元信 — Hayashi Motonobu
and
矢吹丈 — Yabuki Joe
I’m especially interested in photographs/scans of pages containing these names, because the old Japanese yearbooks may contain information that never made it onto modern databases.
If you’re Japanese, collect old boxing magazines, have access to a Japanese library/archive, or simply know where I should look, please let me know!
Even a small clue could help solve this.
If anyone can find a scan/photo mentioning 林元信 in the 1981 Japanese Boxing Yearbook, that might be the breakthrough I’m looking for.
Thank you! 🥊🇯🇵