Yong-Soo Choi’s World Title Breakthrough
On October 21, 1995, Yong-Soo Choi stopped Victor Hugo Paz in the tenth round in Argentina to capture the vacant WBA super-featherweight championship.
When Yong-Soo Choi arrived in Argentina to challenge for the vacant WBA super-featherweight title in October 1995, he was a young contender carrying South Korea’s hopes into an away fight. He left with the championship. Choi stopped Victor Hugo Paz in the tenth round, launching a reign that lasted nearly three years and made him one of the division’s defining champions of the 1990s.
A champion built at home and abroad
Choi had turned professional in 1990 and established himself at home before stepping onto the international stage. In 1993 he won the Korean and Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation super-featherweight titles. The victory over Paz two years later carried that momentum onto a world-title stage: Choi traveled to Salta, Argentina, and claimed the vacant WBA belt by tenth-round technical knockout. He went on to make seven successful defenses (BoxRec championship chronology), a run that kept him at the center of a competitive division.
The Hatakeyama rivalry and the end of his reign
One of Choi’s most memorable stretches came against Japan’s Takanori Hatakeyama. They fought to a draw in October 1997, with Choi retaining the championship. Nearly a year later they met again in Tokyo. This time Hatakeyama earned a majority decision and took the WBA title. It was a hard-fought end to Choi’s reign, and a landmark win for Hatakeyama, who became a world champion for the first time.
Choi later challenged Sirimongkol Singwancha for the WBC super-featherweight title in 2003, but lost and stepped away from the ring. More than a decade later, at 42, he announced a return to boxing. The comeback drew attention to a career that had begun with domestic titles, peaked with a long WBA reign, and closed with one of the era’s notable Korea–Japan rivalries. His story remains part of the wider history of boxing.
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Yong-Soo Choi, Boxing, Boxing History, Championship Fights
