Daiki Kaneko: Boxing Career and Notable Fights
Daiki Kaneko is a Japanese former professional boxer whose career included the national super-featherweight championship and a WBA world-title challenge against Takashi Uchiyama. His final recorded fight was against Pavel Malikov in Russia in July 2017, followed by his retirement announcement that August.
Career and championship record
Originally from Tahara in Aichi Prefecture, Kaneko joined the Yokohama Hikari gym as a teenager and turned professional in 2005. He developed on the Japanese domestic circuit before defeating Seiichi Okada for the national super-featherweight championship in 2012. He made four successful defenses of that title before pursuing the WBA championship.
Kaneko challenged Uchiyama at Tokyo’s Ota-City General Gymnasium on December 31, 2013. Both weighed 130 pounds for their scheduled twelve-round contest. Kaneko knocked the champion down in the tenth round, but Uchiyama completed the fight and retained his championship by unanimous decision. Each judge scored the contest 117–110.
The title challenge was therefore a defeat despite Kaneko’s late knockdown. His domestic championship success and his WBA ranking were separate achievements from winning a world title. The WBA’s historical rankings place him fourth among its super-featherweight contenders in October and November 2013, before the year-end opportunity.
His subsequent opposition included Jomthong Chuwatana and Masao Nakamura. Kaneko met Nakamura at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on August 21, 2015, losing a ten-round split decision. Their contest paired a former Japanese champion with a former OPBF titleholder and formed part of Kaneko’s later run against established regional opposition.
On July 9, 2017, he faced Malikov in Ekaterinburg and lost another split decision. Kaneko announced his retirement on his personal blog on August 11. Japanese reporting quoted gym president Ichitaro Ishii about the decision and the difficult bouts preceding it. A subsequent Boxing Magazine interview described Kaneko beginning work at a remodeling company. His career belongs to the completed professional record of that period, rather than an ongoing account of a prospect preparing for future fights.
Sources
Additional sources: https://boxingnews.jp/news/50374/; https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Takashi_Uchiyama_vs._Daiki_Kaneko; https://www.ringnews24.com/2016/07/07/ko-king-masao-nakamura-retires/; https://www.bbm-japan.com/article/detail/4396; https://www.asianboxing.info/thinking-out-east/archives/08-2021
Additional sources: https://www.wbaboxing.com/wba-boxer-profile?id=2760
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