Former world junior lightweight champion Yoshiaki Numata, head of the Numata Boxing Gym, left the East Japan Boxing Association as the gym submitted its withdrawal notice on Dec. 15, it was announced in the association’s regular online meeting on Dec. 16.

The 75-year-old Numata is quoted as saying that he decided to leave the association by citing his old age and he is prone to illness. But the gym itself will continue to operate. It was established in 1986.
Numata captured the title twice –once in 1967 from the Philippines’ hero Flash Elorde and then in 1969 from Rene Barrientos, also of the Philippines.

The association also approved that Hideyuki Kimura will head Shin-Nihon Kimura Boxing Gym, succeeding his father Shichiro, who established the gym in 1961. The gym has spawned many champions, led by former World Boxing Council flyweight champion Shoji Oguma.

The association admonished Ambition Gym head Takuya Kiya as its boxer was televised when he was sparring at a fitness gym that has nothing to do with the association, which breaches the association’s rules.

Ambition Gym joined the association in the autumn this year and its boxers are supposed to use EBISU K’sBOX gym for the time being.