Takeshi Sendō

Sendou Takeshi (千堂武士, lit sendou takeshi) is a recurring character in Hajime no Ippo. He is a Featherweight boxer from the Naniwa Kentou Boxing Gym and a former JBC Featherweight Champion. He played the main antagonist during the events of championship road, serving as the second Japanese champion Ippo faced for the title.

His surname is Sendou. In Japan, surnames are listed before given names.

Template:Boxer

History

Sendou's father was a fireman who died while saving the life of a child. Like Ippo, Sendou looked up to his father greatly, and this loss inspired him to try to be as strong as his father.

Since young, Sendou was known to be rude and problematic, having lead his own delinquent gang in the streets. However, it is mentioned by his grandma that Sendou did so to protect innocent civilians from other delinquent gangs. He and his grandmother run a market place. His backstory is detailed in Hajime no Ippo Gaiden.

He is first introduced watching a tape of Makunouchi Ippo's spectacular KO victory against Mashiba Ryou and, fired up by the tape, decides to go visit Tokyo for a match against Ippo. He leaves half-disappointed however when he learns of Ippo's broken fist, but declares hopefully to Ippo that he would be "waiting for [him] in Osaka'" when the time comes for their match, accidentally leaving a bag of souvenirs at the station upon his leave.

Disheartened, Sendou does not put much effort into his training until a package arrives in the mail containing the forgotten souvenirs, along with a letter from Ippo stating that they may be able to have their match after all. Renewed by the prospective match Sendou quickly jumps back into intense training, waiting for the day of his match against Ippo.

Despite all his training for the match, Sendou ultimately loses consciousness in his own corner before the start of the fourth round. However, both fighters agree that unless one collapses in the ring, the fight remains unfinished. The two fighters then anxiously wait for the day of their rematch.

Sendou is seen again after Date Eiji's relinquishing of the JBC Featherweight belt. He wins a very close, and controversial, victory by decision against Volg Zangief to acquire the vacant title. His first title defense is against Saeki Takuma, whom he KO's with little difficulty. Afterwards, he is pitted against Shigeta Akira, whose provocations of his and Ippo's style of boxing led Sendou to beat Akira so ferociously that he contracted a fear of being punched (and presumably retired) thereafter. Sendou and Ippo then have their promised rematch for the belt, and he once again loses, this time by way of knockout, to Ippo.

Sendou is also present in Takamura's world title match against Bryan Hawk, along with many other friends and boxing acquaintances where he is seen conversing happily with Miyata, who attempts to ignore him. After Ippo's against Sawamura, he has his comeback match, a 1st round KO.

Sendou's opponents after his second bout with Makunouchi have predominantly been Mexican in order to train to defeat Ricardo Martinez and claim the WBA featherweight title. He defeated 4 Mexicans in a row and came to be ranked 4th in the WBA. He, along with Ippo and Randy Boy Jr., are the only individual featherweights to specifically aim for Ricardo. Sendou joined Ippo in watching Volg's challenge for the IBF world championship. Despite all his preparation, he is astounded at the level of skill displayed in the world-level match. Afterward, he and Ippo sparred in the Kamogawa Gym basement, which leads to Sendou leaving Ippo unconscious in the ring, being held up by the ropes. Takamura asks Sendou to confirm that Ippo has become weaker, and Sendou says that Ippo isn't weaker, he has just become that much stronger, and that Takamura will see it in his next match against a world ranker before a title match. He can't sleep and the next day he immediately watches the match which led to Ippo losing.

Sendou has a semi-final match before Takamura's world title unification bout against Richard Bison. Because he brawled with Mashiba in the waiting room before the fight, he enters the ring with bruises on his face. He is up against a Mexican World ranker once again, Jose Nargo who is ranked 5th in the WBA, and is already called a champ. Jose Nargo dominated Sendou for most of the match because of his experience with sparring Ricardo Martinez. After the 8th round, when Sendou saw Ricardo's Manager, Bill Stewart as his second, he then pushes Jose to the corner and using his knuckles started to press into Jose's stomach aggressively, causing extreme pain and giving Sendou the opportunity to knock Jose out. Sendou defends his ranking of being 4th in the WBA, and might proceed to a title match. After defeating Jose Nargo, he then speaks to Bill Stewart, telling him to give a warning to Alfredo Gonzalez, which shocks Bill as he expected the warning to be given to Ricardo. He then goes back to the room, to watch the match of Takamura with Mashiba. To this point they seem to be okay with each other and not fighting as they discuss how tough Richard Bison is, but they will continue after this match as they say with each other silently...

Match History

No.	Result	Record	Opponent	Type	Rd., Time	Date	Location	Notes
22	WIN	20-2-0	Jose Nargo	KO	8(10)	1998-06-12	Yokohama Arena, Tokyo, Japan	Took down 5th ranker in the WBA, this time it is not to get rank but to defend the rank, fight against fifth Mexican
21	WIN	19-2-0	Unknown	KO	?(10)	1998-03	Osaka, Japan	Gets WBC ranking 9th, but also WBA ranking 4th, fight against fourth Mexican
20	WIN	18-2-0	Unknown	KO	6(10)	1997-07	Osaka, Japan	Gets WBC ranking 15th, but also WBA ranking 8th, fight against third Mexican
19	WIN	17-2-0	Unknown	KO	?(10)	1997-07	Osaka, Japan	Gets WBC ranking 18th and WBA ranking 12th, fight against second Mexican ranker
18	WIN	16-2-0	Jose Ramirez	KO	7(10)	1996-05	Osaka, Japan	"Beware the Beast" WBC Ranked 23rd, fight against first Mexican
17	WIN	15-2-0	Unknown	KO	1(10)	1995-04	Osaka, Japan	Comeback Match
16	LOSS	14-2-0	Makunouchi Ippo	KO	7(10) 1:34	1993-11-20	Tokyo, Japan	Lost Japanese Featherweight Title
15	WIN	14-1-0	Shigeta Akira	TKO	3(10)	1993-09	Osaka, Japan	Retained Japanese Featherweight Title
14	WIN	13-1-0	Saeki Takuma	KO	1(10) 1:07	1993-07	Osaka, Japan	Retained Japanese Featherweight Title
13	WIN	12-1-0	Alexander Volg Zangief	Decision	10(10), 3:00	1993-04	Osaka, Japan	Unification Match, Won Japanese Featherweight Title
12	WIN	11-1-0	Unknown	KO	?(6)	1993-02	Osaka, Japan	"None"
11	WIN	10-1-0	Unknown	KO	?(6)	1992-08	Osaka, Japan	"None"
10	WIN	9-1-0	Unknown	KO	?(6)	1992-06	Osaka, Japan	"None"
9	WIN	8-1-0	Unknown	KO	?(6)	1992-04	Osaka, Japan	"None"
8	WIN	7-1-0	Unknown	KO	?(6)	1992-03	Osaka, Japan	"None"
7	LOSS	6-1-0	Makunouchi Ippo	RTD/TKO	3(6), 3:00	1992-02	Osaka, Japan	All Japan Rookie King Tournament
6	WIN	6-0-0	Unknown	KO	2(6)	1990-10	Osaka, Japan	West Japan Rookie King Tournament (Finals), Became Rookie King Champion of the West
5	WIN	5-0-0	Unknown	KO	?(4)	1990-08	Osaka, Japan	West Japan Rookie King Tournament (Semi-Finals)
4	WIN	4-0-0	Unknown	KO	?(4)	1990-06	Osaka, Japan	West Japan Rookie King Tournament (Quarter-Finals)
3	WIN	3-0-0	Unknown	KO	?(4)	1990-05	Osaka, Japan	West Japan Rookie King Tournament (Semi-Quarter Finals)
2	WIN	2-0-0	Unknown	KO	?(4)	1990-03	Osaka, Japan	Match after Pro Debut
1	WIN	1-0-0	Unknown	KO	?(4)	1990-02	Osaka, Japan	Pro Debut

Successions

Preceded by	Title	Succeeded by
Date Eiji	JBC Featherweight Champion April, 1993 - November 20, 1993	Makunouchi Ippo
Unknown	West Japan Featherweight Rookie King	Unknown (eventually Hoshi Hiroyuki)

Appearance

Sendou is a man of rugged appearance, reflecting his brash personality and career as a boxer. He sports an extremely muscular build, a tanned complexion, and is of average height. His hair is dark brown, long, and unkempt, styled in a swept-forward manner with countless tufts jutting out in all possible directions. Sendou also has thin eyebrows and large eyes with black pupils.

Nicknames, etc.

Character	Nickname	Japanese	Translation
-	Naniwa no Tora	浪速の虎	The Naniwa Tiger
-	Naniwa no Rocky	浪速のロッキー	The Naniwa Rocky
Ippo Fujii Iimura	Sendou-san	千堂さん	see here
Takamura Coach Kamogawa Most Characters	Sendou	千堂	N/A
Grandmother	Takeshi	武士	N/A

Personality

A brash, actions-before-thoughts boxer, Sendou is shown to be incredibly energetic and competitive when it comes down to boxing. As an average lower-class Osaka resident he speaks in the Kansai dialect and, despite being rude and temperamental, Sendou possesses an extremely kind heart. His personality also incorporates a certain stinginess, having sent Ippo an invitation to one of his own fights while expecting Ippo to pay him for the expense of the ticket.

In a conversation with Makunouchi Ippo it is revealed that Sendou respects and looks up to real-life boxer Rocky Marciano. He specifically points out that the 'Rocky' in his nickname does not come from the popular Rocky film series, but from Marciano.

Fighting Style and Techniques

Sendou is an instinctive infighter who is heavy handed with his blows. He possesses incredible lower and upper body strength, comparable to Ippo, although his optimum punching distance is actually at a medium range. He is almost feral in his fighting approach, relying on sheer instincts, rather than technique to avoid injury in his matches. Tactically, he is large with his punches and uses wide swings to instill a sense of fear into his opponent, which he takes advantage of to set his rhythm. Sendo can also throw compact punches with no lead-in making them hard for an opponent to predict. He has showcased a powerful dash built up through hours of running with ankle weights. Sendou's prideful nature means that he will very rarely step back or retreat during a match, which has proved to be a crude but effective natural seal to techniques such as the Dempsey Roll which rely on unbroken rhythms and starting distance.

Techniques

Weaknesses

His prideful boxing style is also his main weakness. His guard is essentially non-existent, and his main offensive technique, the Smash, requires a large swinging motion, leaving him completely open for counters. (Though, rather than improve the technique's defense, Sendou instead chose to increase the power with a lower and more vertical punch.)

His instincts can also be used against him, as they often lead him to make rash decisions too quickly to judge the danger behind them. Sendou has also pointed out that his style is very weak against counters. He has never beaten Sawamura in a spar even once.

Gallery

Trivia

Sendou has been seen doing roadwork only twice throughout the entire series, which was during his introduction before the All Japan Rookie King tournament and preceding his rematch with Ippo (though he was coming home from roadwork that time). Despite never being seen seriously training, reportedly having to go through weight control, and most of his bouts being one or two rounds long, he hasn't been shown to have problems with stamina in his longest matches.
The game console he promised to buy the neighborhood kids in the manga appears to be an SNES, whereas in the anime, the console appears to be a SONY PS2.
Similar to Ippo, Sendou has a large penis (bigger than Takamura's).
Even though his nickname, Rocky, may suggest otherwise, Sendou is similar to Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. Ruddock is known for giving Mike Tyson two tough fights and for creating the Smash. Coincidentally, Ippo is similar to Mike Tyson, and both Ippo's first match with Sendou and Ruddock's first match with Tyson were prematurely stopped, giving Ippo the TKO win in the 4th round and Tyson the TKO win in the 7th round. However, both Sendou and Ruddock finished the match still standing.
As of Volume 104, Sendou is the only boxer to land a clean hit against Takamura in a spar.
Sendou and Mashiba's meeting at Ippo's eighth title defense was their first encounter throughout the series.
In the manga, Sendou gives his coach the middle finger when he first joined the gym. In the anime, it is changed to a thumbs down.

Sendou, as a character, seems to be inspired by Joe Yabuki, main character of a classic boxing manga- Ashita No Joe. Sendou's friends with 5 kids from his neighborhood, just like Joe. And even one of kids from Sendou's neighborhood, a girl in a white shirt and a red skirt, looks almost identical as Sachi from Ashita No Joe.