One week after the Kameda fight…

It’s been one week since Kouki Kameda won the WBA Light Flyweight belt by judges’ decision. Since then, there has been a tremendous backlash against Kameda, the Japanese television network that aired the fight, and of course Korean organized crime. Judging from the comments posted on Japanese forums and on Kameda-related YouTube videos, it seems that many people believe that Kameda was unfairly declared victor through some sort of judge bribery that involved Yakuza-tied pachinko companies that sponsored the event and the Korean judge who ruled that Kameda had won. Forget about the other judge that said Kameda won, it was clearly the Korean, right? Some commenters are speculating that Kameda is actually a zainichi Korean, which is something I have been unable to confirm.

Marxy has made a pretty detailed post about various conspiracy theories that are floating around, and I suggest you check it out if you are interested (also see part 2).

The main venue for attacks on Kameda appears to be YouTube. Dozens of videos, most of them news reports about how Kameda shouldn’t have won the fight, have appeared on the most viewed section, and they continue to dominate it. One video posted in the last 24 hours has recieved almost 900,000 views, making it one of the most popular YouTube videos ever. A video would need only 1,700,000 views to make it to the most viewed of all time list, and this video is well on its way there. Here it is:

In this video, the manga artist Yaku Mitsuru confronts Kameda’s father(the guy with the buzzed head) about his son’s behavior. A lot of people turned against the Kameda’s after Kouki Kameda’s arrogant post-fight interviews, in which he used his usual strong language. Yaku has intentionally dressed up in a yakuza manner to drive home his point: the Kameda family (Kameda and his 3 boxer sons) look and act like crude gangsters, and Kameda needs to discipline his son. Old-man Kameda responds by getting extremely pissed off, threatening Yaku and demanding that they step outside (so Kameda can beat the shit out of him). Apparently security guards were called in to stand around and make sure that Kameda didn’t actually attack Yaku. The full interview/confrontation can viewed here (part 1) and here (part 2). The longer portions of the interview are also on their way towards the YouTube hall of fame, with hundreds of thousands of views in the last 24 hours (the most viewed English language video of the last 24 hours had about 65,000 views).

Now that a large number of Japanese people now seem to dislike Kameda, are his days numbered? Are his brothers’ careers also ruined? How long will it be until Lawson pulls their Kameda-themed food items?