Keiji Ozaki


Keiji Ozaki is a Japanese taekwondo practitioner and a kickboxer. He won the tournament of R.I.S.E. at welterweight in 2006. As a martial artist, he practises the full-contact version of taekwondo, and has competed in numerous competitions. His rank is 2nd dan black belt certified by the Japan Taekwondo Association.

Biography

Youth

Keiji Ozaki was born on April 24, 1980 in the prefecture of Kanagawa, Japan. He spent his young age in United States, in Murrysville, PA until he was halfway through high school. After coming to a Japanese high school, he started practicing finswimming. He participated in the Japanese national championship of swimming for 5 different disciplines in 1999, and he won 5 gold medals at 5 disciplines. After graduation of high school, he entered Kanagawa University and he joined its taekwondo team.

Taekwondo era

In 2000, he won the gold medal of Japanese national championship for undergraduates in full contact taekwondo at open weight. In 2002 and 2003, he won the national championships for adults.

Professional kickboxing

In March 2000, he joined Team Dragon and started practicing kickboxing. On September 28, 2003, he debuted on R.I.S.E., one of the kickboxing promoting and sanctioning body, as a professional kickboxer. He fought against Tomoaki Suehiro, and won by unanimous decision.
On December 17, 2006, he won the "R.I.S.E. Dead or Alive tournament '06".

K-1

Ozaki was offered by K-1, and he participated K-1 to prove the strength of taekwondo.
He defeated Masanobu Goto by a clear unanimous decision at Krush-EX 2012 vol.5 on October 21, 2012 at Shinjuki Face in Tokyo. He floored Goto four times in the fight.
He lost to Jessy Petit-Jean in a fight for the WKN World Lightweight Kickboxing Championship on November 17, 2012 in Liege, Belgium.
He lost a majority decision to Hiroya in a non-tournament bout at Krush Grand Prix 2013 ~67kg Tournament First Round~ on January 14, 2013 in Tokyo.
Ozaki faced fellow taekwondo stylist Seiji Takahashi at NJKF: 2013 3rd in Tokyo on April 29, 2013.

Titles