People :
Winner of the Pro Boxing 51st National Rookie Championship!
Mr. Hiroyasu Matsuzaki

Mr. Hiroyasu Matsuzaki Born 1982 in Saitama Prefecture. Graduated Waseda University Senior High School. Currently a senior in the School of Political Science and Economics. Takes Professor Kazuya Noguchi’s seminar. Interests: reading manga, and being physically active. Professional super-featherweight boxer. Belongs to Kyoei Gym.

On 19 December 2004, at the National Rookie Championship Match held at Kourakuen Hall, Matsuzaki was crowned the new super-featherweight champion. Although faced with an opponent ten centimeters taller than him, he won in a decisive 3-0 match. **Slowly and surely, he is beginning to grasp victory.

The East Japan Rookie Championship Match in November paired him against Kazuhiko Saito, a graduate of the Waseda School of Commerce, causing the newspapers to talk about a “Waseda vs. Waseda” showdown even before the match had begun. “I wanted the match to be worthy of all the attention it received,” Matsuzaki said. He triumphed over Saito, but as always after a match, his trainer Atsushi Hagiwara critiqued him harshly. Matsuzaki trusts Mr. Hagiwara both as his teacher and as a kindred spirit “because he believes that it is possible for me to become even stronger”.

During his years as a junior high school student, Matsuzaki was a star player on the baseball team, leading the team to the position of runner-up in the prefectural championship games. From elementary school and throughout junior high and high school, he played on the baseball team. After entering university, he felt that he wanted to test his abilities as an individual athlete. He chose boxing for its strong, cool image, as defined by Katsuya Onizuka and Mike Tyson. After starting in a small local training facility, he joined his current gym, and passed the test to become a professional over a year ago. “Now that I’ve turned pro, I feel like I want to make all of the people who came to watch feel good when they’re going home. However, I don’t like aiming for a knockout punch only to end up losing thoughtlessly. I think my approach to boxing is simple: focus on breaking the opponent’s rhythm and attacking in a surefire way. Right now I want to focus on winning, rather than on technique.”

“I have confidence in what I’ve accomplished so far, but I’m not overly excited. My long-anticipated debut match was a defeat by KO, but I think I’ve incorporated the knowledge I gained from that defeat into my subsequent matches.” His professional career record out of eight matches is seven wins (2 KOs) and one loss. Steadfastly modest, he says, “I’ve been blessed with the people around me, and I feel like I have good luck. Personally, all I want to do is work hard to accomplish what is set before me.”

His smile is gentle, unexpectedly so compared to the grim look he wears while fighting. “I still read the same comic books which I’ve read since I was a kid, and I feel like I haven’t grown up at all. I’ll become an adult when the time comes,” he says, laughing. However, “I don’t want to regret any decisions that I make. No matter what road I take in the future, I want to make sure I lead a fulfilling life.”