Ishihiro Yagi

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Ishihiro Yagi outside of his home in Miyazaki, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan. Photo taken in 1981.

Also known as "the Rising Sun," "the Silent Storm," and "the Hobbit," Ishihiro Yagi (in Japanese: 八鬼石弘) is well-known as the shortest champion in the History of the Fight, beating out 1908's Roland Ehret by three inches. Due to his short stature, Yagi spent the first day of the Fight virtually unnoticed by the other contestants as he meditated for twenty-five hours in the northeast corner. At 6 AM on Day Two, he was approached by a lightweight Polish fighter named Jynik Gowno. Yagi's defeat of Gowno in a mere 3.56 seconds began a two-day reign of terror where Yagi soon mastered the field, defeating the last contender, Marko "Melonheart" Schweitz, at 6:37 PM that day, as the sun set, in a masterful competition that would go down in history as the Sunset Duel. Other highlights of his fight included the destruction of the ten-man alliance surrounding heavyweight Jake "Cooler" Mahogany in less than a minute, using nothing more than his bare feet and a spare table leg gripped in his teeth.

If Rodney Leonard Stubbs was the Thomas Edison of handing a dude his ass, Ishihiro Yagi was surely the Leonardo di Vinci.

[edit] Quotes

"Better than gold and riches is fighting spirit. Better than fighting spirit is a table leg." - via a translator, in an interview with Bob Raffles in 1976.