Inside Tokyo’s Executive Fight Night XIV: Meet the Fighters Boxing for Shine On! Kids
Executive Fight Night XIV (EFN) is a charity boxing event in Tokyo where corporate executives compete to raise money for Shine On! Kids, and it’s back for its 14th iteration. It will take place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on May 29, from 6:30 p.m. The luxurious setting makes way for a fully lit boxing ring and stands, and at its heart, you’ll see some of Tokyo’s biggest business names show that hostile takeovers aren’t confined to the boardroom.
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The pre-match
As part of the event, sponsors and guests will be served a four-course dinner with wine and cocktails. The tables are clustered around the ring, with high rollers and VIPs seated tableside. As each fighter makes their way to the ring, spectators get an up-close and personal view from their tables, and the action is only feet away.
About Shine On! Kids
Shine On! Kids, the host of Executive Fight Night, is a children’s charity that is best known for its groundbreaking Hospital Facility Dog program. Working with children suffering from serious illnesses, Shine On! Kids brings light to the somber mood of hospitals through its staff of trained dogs who entertain and comfort families through the most difficult moments. Funds from EFN all go towards this and similar initiatives, and you can play a part by getting in touch through their website or by emailing kim@sokids.org.
Here are three of the fighters, more coming later this week:
Will Foley
Age: 49
Weight: 82 kg
Height: 1.77 m
Will Foley has been in Tokyo for close to 25 years. He’s been boxing for about five of those years. And two years ago he fought at Executive Fight Night, enjoyed it, and when they asked if he wanted to do it again, said yes without much deliberation.
It’s that cut and dried.
Executive Fight Night raises money for Shine On! Kids, and one of their main initiatives brings therapeutic service dogs to children in Japan dealing with cancer and other serious illnesses. For Foley, that’s all the motivation he needs. He’s lost family members and friends to cancer. So when the chance to lace up again came around, the choice was clear.
The hard part, he’ll tell you, has been the hours. Twelve weeks of intensive training on top of everything else — a career, four children, a life — takes a lot out of a person, motivated or not. He’s managed it, but it’s been a challenge. Still, it’s one he took on happily.
Ask him about nerves and he doesn’t give you a stock answer about being ready and focused. He reckons the nerves will hit the week before and won’t leave until the final bell. He’s been through this once already, though, so he knows exactly what’s coming. That self-awareness is reassuring for Foley, but pretty ominous for anyone who sees him approaching across the ring.
Sho Hayter
Age: 29
Weight: 70 kg
Height: 1.79 m
Sho Hayter is half-Japanese, half-English, grew up in London, and moved to Tokyo in his mid-20s after graduating from university. His route into Executive Fight Night was about as serendipitous as it could be: he was training in a park, a former EFN participant turned up, told him about it, and encouraged him to apply. He fought two years ago, and now he’s ready to step up again.
His reasons for returning are twofold, and both are close to his heart. First, Shine On! Kids’ work genuinely matters to him: for kids going through serious illness in Japan, service dogs provide the hope and joy that a cold, clinical setting misses. For him, that’s worth the sacrifice. Second, it’s good for him too. The experience of the 12-week program itself is something he wanted again. The same group of people, the same shared grind, the friendships that come out of the sustained effort of pushing himself and others.
The cost of it is real, though. Hayter works a busy job in Tokyo and fitting serious boxing training around that means something else has to give way. In his case, it’s been Friday nights — skipping drinks with friends to go and train alone in the gym. That may not sound like a glamorous sacrifice, but it adds up.
He comes into fight night this year feeling good. He wants to perform in front of the people coming to watch. He knows there’ll be nerves on the night — everyone has nerves, he says — but his main gut feeling right now is excitement rather than dread. Twelve weeks of work are over, and he wants to show what it looks like.
Simon Collier
Age: 51
Weight: 81 kg
Height: 1.82 m
Simon Collier used to be a British diplomat. He worked at the U.K. Embassy in Tokyo, eventually moved into the private sector, and has stayed in the city ever since. Before any of this, he ran marathons and played soccer for years. He is, in his own words, older than every other male fighter in this year’s event.
He doesn’t let that stop him.
“Better late than never,” is how he puts it. It sounds like someone who made a decision, knew what they were getting into, and got on with it. Boxing is his next challenge: he wanted one, this qualified, and he signed up. The age gap between him and the other fighters is a fact he acknowledges and then moves past.
What’s surprised him, he says, is the team element. The Red Team camaraderie has been more meaningful than he anticipated going in. Knowing you’re not doing this alone makes a difference when the training gets heavy and the weeks start to drag.
As for nerves before fight night, Collier says what he mostly feels is impatience. He wants the first bell to ring. Given that he’s describing his state of mind as wanting to get on with it rather than hoping the night goes smoothly, anyone he gets into the ring should know they’re not getting out without some welts.
Tickets for EFN are available online at the EFN website.
