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The story
A thread has caught fire on 5ch after a post claiming, “If a kendo club member picked up a wooden sword, he could even beat a heavyweight pro boxer.” One camp argued the kendo fighter has the edge if he can endure long enough to close the distance, using the wooden sword’s reach and lethality as his weapon; the other countered that a heavyweight boxer’s punch would end things long before that. Commenters cited the legend of Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro’s duel at Ganryu Island, as well as Tenshin Nasukawa’s swift KO loss to Floyd Mayweather, as the debate split over which matters more in a fight: “distance control” or “the weight of a single blow.”
What people said
Even a bamboo shinai is dangerous enough that thrusting attacks are banned for anyone below high school age.
So high schoolers are just fine dying from a thrust, huh
And if it misses, he eats a Mike Tyson straight, gets sent flying several meters, and it's game over with a fractured skull
Kendo club uses a bamboo shinai, remember.
A shinai won't kill you, but a solid wooden sword definitely can.
When Miyamoto Musashi faced Sasaki Kojiro at Ganryu Island, Kojiro used a real blade, but Musashi still killed him with a wooden sword.
Is that historical account even accurate?
Then again, one theory about Ganryu Island says Kojiro was already an old man by then, and Musashi actually brought disciples along to gang up and beat him down
Wherever it hits, "ouch" doesn't even begin to cover it.
A baseball player who can nail you at over 100 km/h with real accuracy might honestly be the strongest of all.
By that logic, Shintaro Fujinami, who throws 160 km/h fastballs, would be the strongest guy alive
He can't hit left-handed batters though (a running joke about Fujinami's notoriously wild control)
Throwing rocks is a legitimate foot-soldier tactic
A baseball player with a ball can keep firing away, whether it's 5 meters or 10.
In a real fight with balls or rocks flying, a baseball player used to that kind of thing is basically unbeatable.
Even a 2-meter-tall wrestler would go down.
In Shin Hissatsu Shiokinin (a Japanese period drama), Fumio Fujimura hit it right back
Let's say a baseball player and a kendo fighter face off in a duel 20 meters apart.
The kendo fighter holds the wooden sword vertically in front of his body for defense and charges straight in.
Even someone slow can cover 20 meters and close the distance in 5-6 seconds.
Can the baseball player really get off 5 pitches in that time?
And this is a guy who already struggles to hit the target in a strikeout contest — how's he supposed to land a fatal shot on someone charging at him with his vitals covered?
The instant the kendo fighter closes the gap, it's one strike to the skull and the baseball player's dead.
Being able to answer while backing away is the biggest advantage.
If he's slowly closing in, just keep landing fast thrusts to the face and it's a landslide win.
I don't know how good you think you are, but do you seriously believe kendo footwork can match a pro boxer's?
It's the other way around — kendo footwork is insanely fast
Boxer footwork that gets stomped flat in one step by a well-built athlete
What if he charges in accepting he'll eat one hit?
If you can't knock him out cold with that single blow, you lose
Might work against a weak kendo club member
You can land combo strikes while backing away, you know
If you can't take him out in one hit, you'll be the one knocked out in seconds
No matter how much muscle you pack on, pain is pain — you can't just tough that out
And that's a Mayweather who'd already retired and mostly fought around welterweight (lol).
If a kendo club kid took a punch from an active heavyweight boxer, he'd go flying, wooden sword and all.
https://www.nikkansports.com/battle/news/img/202206140000241-w1300_0.jpg
Makes you wonder if boxers just have a reputation for being bad at real fighting?
Apparently when the actor Kaneko made his combat-sports debut, he specifically requested a boxer-type opponent
Cocky little guys who think they're invincible seem to exist in every country
In America, soldiers are seen as the pinnacle of toughness
I doubt he could even keep his cool the first time this thing comes charging at him up close.
This is closer to fighting a wild animal than a human.
He's not tough enough to shatter the tip of a wooden sword charging straight at him
Anyone in this thread fantasizing about wooden swords clearly hasn't seen the real world
There's no such thing as gangs using metal bats
It's simply that there aren't wooden swords lying around, and metal is harder than wood anyway
The reason the Kanto Rengo (a real-life delinquent gang) killed people with bats as a group is this:
if you're caught carrying a wooden sword without belonging to a kendo club, you could be charged with a firearms-and-swords violation, and the sentence is harsher.
With a bat, you can claim you were just about to play some casual baseball.
Plus, attacking as a group makes it unclear who actually landed the killing blow.
If he starts grabbing and clinching, he's got a shot, but
that's not boxing anymore.
Once you fight outside boxing rules, you're not a boxer anymore, just a big guy
What kind of twisted logic is that (lol)
In an actual boxing match, the opponent is doing boxing too, you know
Background and key points of this debate
This kind of “who would win in a mixed-discipline fight” thread is a 5ch staple, and here the difference between a solid wooden sword (bokuto) and a bamboo shinai became the starting point. Indeed, thrusting attacks with a shinai are considered dangerous enough to be banned for anyone below high school age, and a wooden sword is said to be even more lethal — while the boxer’s lifeline is how many punches he can land in the few seconds it takes his opponent to close the distance. The Nasukawa-Mayweather bout cited in the thread was a 2018 exhibition match rather than an official title fight, which is worth noting. Likewise, the Ganryu Island legend of Miyamoto Musashi killing Sasaki Kojiro with a wooden sword has competing historical accounts — including a theory that Musashi ambushed Kojiro with the help of his disciples — and isn’t settled fact. The thread also brings up a real group, the Kanto Rengo, and their choice of weapons, but this is general commentary drawing on past incidents rather than a reference to any specific act or victim. Overall, opinions remain split across three axes — “distance,” “reaction speed,” and “the weight of a single blow” — with no resolution in sight.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Harupuro board) thread “Kendo Club Member: “If I Had a Wooden Sword, I Could Beat Even a Heavyweight Pro Boxer”.”
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