Tadashi Sawamura

Hideki Shiraha died at a hospital in Chiba prefecture on March 26, 2021 at 78 years old. It was discovered that he had lung cancer and that it had progressed to a state where Shiraha was experiencing bloody sputum. He diagnosed in the summer of the previous year and had been medical treatment since.

The final match was held on July 2, 1976, and the retirement ceremony was held on October 10, the following year. His final record was 241 fights, 232 wins (228KO), 5 losses and 4 draws. He became one of the sport's great champions and would help make it popular world-wide, retiring with over 200 knockouts.

He won the Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize in 1973. At that time, it was popular on the covers of several general magazines such as "Weekly Shonen Champion" (Akita Shoten) first issue in 1969 and "Weekly Shonen Magazine" (1968 issue 47).

The Japan Kickboxing Association was launched in April 1966, with Shiraha debuting as a professional kickboxer on April 11, 1966 under the ring name "Tadashi Sawamura". The ring name was chosen after Kyokushin fighter Tadashi Nakamura, who defeated a Muay Thai fighter by KO at Lumpinee Stadium in 1964 as a representative of Japan and Karate.

In June 1966, he fought against Muay Thai fighter "Samansō adison" (サマンソー・アディソン), who was ranked #8 at Lumpinee's featherweight division, at the Riki Palace. Sawamura lost by 4th Round KO and during the fight, was knocked down to the mat 16 times during the fight (with some reporting 19 times) and received more that 25 bruises from the fight.

In 1963 there was a competitive match between leading Japanese and Thai instructors, a karate vs Muay Thai tournament. Japan won the series although two of the Japanese participants Osamu Noguchi and Tatsuo Yamada wanted to create a full-contact sport similar to how Muay Thai is a sport in Thailand, and they started to create kickboxing.

Tadashi Sawamura (沢村 忠, Sawamura Tadashi, January 5, 1943 – March 26, 2021) was a Japanese kickboxer whose real name was Hideki Shiraha (白羽 秀樹, Shiraha Hideki). He was one of the first popular participants in the sport, and enjoyed great fame throughout his career. He is sometimes credited with sustaining the early boom in the popularity of kickboxing. He had an exceptionally high knockout percentage of 94.60% in combat sports. For comparison, in heavyweight boxing the two highest knockout percentages are 87.76% by Rocky Marciano and 87.23% by Vitali Klitschko. Mike Tyson, who became famous for his knockout power, retired with a knockout percentage of 75.86%. Sawamura's knockout prowess earned him the nickname "The Demon of Kickboxing".

Hideki Shiraha was born in Manchukuo in 1943. In his youth, he studied Gōjū-ryū-style Karate and some Chinese Martial Arts from his grandfather. As a child, he was part of a children's theater company called "Theatrical Company Broad Bean" (gekidan sora mame - 劇団そらまめ), with aspirations of becoming an actor in the future.