At the Olympic qualifier, he beat three opponents, including Osmar Bravo who also qualified, then lost the final to American southpaw Marcus Browne. All three made the Olympics. At the 2012 Olympics, he controversially edged out Sumit Sangwan 15:14, then Meng Fanlong 17:17, on countback before besting Cuban world champion Julio César la Cruz 18:15. He was defeated in the semi-finals by the Russian favorite Egor Mekhontsev 23:11 and received the bronze medal.[4]
Unlike what his name suggests, he is not of Japanese descent.
Professional career
On October 2, it was revealed that Falcão became a professional, signing with Golden Boy Promotions.[5] In his debut, he was disqualified alongside Martín Fidel Ríos after the second round. Both fighters traded a few punches after the round ended followed by Ríos spitting on Falcão. The call was seen as excessive by both fighters, whom wanted to keep fighting.[6] However, Falcão won all of his subsequent 11 fights. In the tenth, against Jorge Daniel Caraballo, Falcão won the WBC Latino middleweight title.[7]
In 2023, at the age of 35, he faced Cuban David Morrell, current super middleweight champion (up to 76.2 kg), in the dispute for the World Boxing Association (WBA) belt. He was selected at the last minute to replace the Ghanaian Sena Agbeko, who had documentation problems and was left out of the match. The Brazilian had less than two weeks to prepare for the fight, where he felt the lack of rhythm against his rival, ten years younger, and fell in the first round. He was attempting to become the seventh Brazilian to be world boxing champion, joining Éder Jofre, Miguel de Oliveira, Acelino Freitas, Valdemir Pereira, Rose Volantê and Patrick Teixeira.[8]
