By Takahiro Onaga

The 2012 Olympics in London was a brilliant one in many ways for boxing fans as it helped launch the professional careers of fighters like Anthony Joshua, Vasyl Lomachneko and Rau'shee Warren. All world champions today. It was also a great one for Japanese boxing with it being the Only Olympics where Japan has managed to get 2 medals in the sport.

Of course everyone knows abut Japanese Middleweight Ryota Murata (10-0, 7), who fights in Las Vegas this coming weekend against the experienced George Tahdooahnippah (34-2-3-2, 24), who claimed gold at Middleweight. But not so many know about the man who beat him to a medal, Satoshi Shimizu, who technically claimed Japan's first boxing medal since 1968!

The well liked Shimizu had made his Olympic debut in 2008 and had hoped to become the first Japanese fighter to compete in 3 Olympics. Sadly for him however he failed to become a Japanese representative for the upcoming Rio games and looked towards turning professional, putting feelers out with the top promoters in Japan and talking to good friend Naoya Inoue.

Those feelers resulted in Shimizu signing a professional contract with the well established Ohashi gym, run by former world champion Hideyuki Ohashi, who promised to put Shimizu on the fast track to the top.

The work will begin on preparing for his debut which has been pencilled in for September 4th on the under-card of Naoya Inoue's next world title defense, against Petchbarngborn Kokietgym.

At the moment no opponent has been linked to Shimizu but it's known that the 30 year old will be in a 6 rounder and will be expected to make an immediate impact in the professional ranks with a possible Japanese title fight with in a year and a potential world title fight in the next 24 months.

The southpaw was an outstanding amateur, with a reported 150-20 (70) amateur record, a 2-time Olympian. With that level of experience, and with the Ohashi mentality, I see no way in which Shimizu late start will really hinder him. Ohashi have bucked the trend by allowing their prospects to fight tough bouts early and have refused to protect fighters and their unbeaten record. The same is likely to be the case here for a man who has the pedigree to go a very long way.