Education
Nihon University.
沢村 忠白羽 秀樹
Nihon University.
He was one of the first popular participants in the sport, and enjoyed great fame throughout his career. He is sometimes credited for sustaining the early boom in the popularity of kickboxing. He has an exceptionally high knockout percentage of 94.60% in combat sports.
Foreign comparison, in heavyweight boxing the two highest knockout percentages are 87.76% by Rocky Marciano and 87.23% by Vitali Klitschko.
Sawamura"s knockout prowess earned him the nickname "The Demon of Kickboxing". In 1963 there was a competitive match between leading Japanese and Thai instructors, a karate vs muay thai tournament.
Sawamura went to Thailand to prove he couldn"t lose regardless of the rules because he thought himself to have the samurai spirit. He lost the fight against the Thai fighter in round 2 and suffered three broken ribs and needed sixteen months to heal.
Disheartened, Sawamura wanted to retrain himself in jujutsu and hold a rematch.
Noguchi met with Sawamura while he was healing, and introduced him to Japanese kickboxing. He became one of the sport"s great champions and would help make it popular world-wide, retiring with over 200 knockouts. Hideki Shiraha was born in Manchukuo in 1943.
He practiced rugby during university.
He debuted as a professional kickboxer on April 11, 1966. He retired on October 10, 1977.
He now manages his automobile-related company. He also enjoys teaching karate to children in his free time.
241 total fights
232 wins
228 by knockout
5 losses
4 draws
His exploits were the basis of an anime series called Kick no Oni (which means "The demon of kickboxing", written by Ikki Kajiwara), and he was also a guest on an episode of the series Ultraman.
His anime series also became intensely popular in Brazil during the 70"s and early 80"s featuring 26 episodes under the name "Sawamu, o Demolidor". In this series, Tadashi Sawamu (Brazilian translation), was an arrogant karate fighter who was defeated by a kickboxer, leaving Sawamu in a mild coma. Once in the hospital and recovering from the coma, his opponent"s kickboxing trainer Noguchi, came to his hospital room and convinced Sawamu to become a kickboxer.
To which after some rigorous training, he learned a devastating finishing move: "The Jumping Vacuum Knee" (Shinku tobi hiza geri)
The Japanese name for Hitmonlee, a Pokémon character, is Sawamurā, which is a reference to Sawamura.
In Cynthia, a girl embraces a sandbag which was kicked by Tadashi Sawamura.