Kosei Tanaka was only a fifth-grader when Kiyoshi Hatanaka first saw him throwing punches.

It only took an instant for the former world champ to spot the kid's exceptional potential.

"I thought he'd be a world champion in 10 years," Hatanaka, who was the WBC super bantamweight champion in 1991 and now runs Hatanaka Boxing Gym in northern Nagoya, said in an interview with The Japan Times late last month.