‘Similar To My Own Life And What I’m Going Through’ – How Musashi’s ‘Vagabond’ Reshaped Yuya Wakamatsu’s Meaning Of Strength
· Yahoo Sports
If Yuya “Little Piranha” Wakamatsu ever wrote his own book, it wouldn’t be about fighting. It wouldn’t chronicle the knockouts, the ONE World Title bouts, or the nights he stood atop the canvas as divisional king.
It would be about something quieter and far more difficult – the relentless, lifelong campaign against the enemy you can never outrun: yourself.
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It sounds simple. For Wakamatsu, it has been anything but.
Before the ONE Flyweight MMA World Champion makes his second title defense against dangerous Uzbek finisher Avazbek Kholmirzaev at ONE SAMURAI 1, live from the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, April 29, Wakamatsu remembers the legendary manga that changed the trajectory of his life and career.
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A Chiropractor’s Office, A Chance Encounter
The story begins, as the best ones often do, with an accident.
Around the time his first son was born, Wakamatsu found himself at a chiropractor’s office with time to kill. On the shelf sat a volume of Vagabond, Takehiko Inoue’s epic story that follows the wandering swordsman Miyamoto Musashi on his obsessive quest to become the greatest warrior in Japan.
Wakamatsu said:
“I knew about Vagabond from when I was young, but as a kid, I had no interest in reading it. Then, about six or seven years ago, I started reading it and just kept going from there.”
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Wakamatsu never really stopped.
Vagabond is a work about the intersection of fighting and philosophy, about what it means to be strong, and whether strength achieved through combat can lead a man toward something greater than himself.
For a fighter who had already dedicated his life to the pursuit of martial arts, the timing of that chance encounter couldn’t have been more precise:
“I just felt like it was so similar to my own life and what I’m going through.”
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Musashi In The Mirror
At its heart, Vagabond is a meditation on what strength really means. Musashi enters the story as a wild, destructive force, cutting down anyone in his path, convinced that power alone equals greatness.
What he eventually discovers through solitude, suffering, and an awakening to the world beyond his blade is that true strength is spiritual.
Wakamatsu recognized himself in that journey immediately:
“Just as Musashi polished his soul through swordsmanship, through martial arts, I’ve been able to pursue the question of what strength really is through fighting. That’s genuinely all it is for me. Not fame, not money. It’s the pursuit of strength.”
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There is something almost counter-cultural in that admission from a professional MMA fighter who’s at the top of his sport.
In an era of personal branding and social media metrics, Wakamatsu operates from a different set of coordinates entirely.
He continued:
“Musashi, as a human being, is my definition of cool, and I’ve been chasing that. And I want my sons to grow up that way too. That’s what has shaped who I am now.”
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The Kojiro Inside
Every great warrior story needs a rival. In Vagabond, that rival is Sasaki Kojiro, a deaf swordsman of transcendent natural talent, Musashi’s mirror and eventual equal. Their confrontation is the axis around which the entire epic turns.
When asked whether he has his own Kojiro – a rival who pushes him toward his best – Wakamatsu’s answer is immediate and cuts to something deeper.
He admitted:
“What I always say is that my greatest opponent is myself. It’s always there, following me around. The weakness inside me – the desire to slack off, to take it easy here, to coast through this part. That’s always present. So in the end, my battle is always with that weakness.”
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It is a remarkably honest thing for a ONE World Champion to say. But he doesn’t stop there. He reaches back into the world of the manga to explain the spiritual dimension he carries with him into every training session and every fight.
Because according to the Japanese star, more than the fighting itself, spiritual strength is the true secret to being the strongest.
Wakamatsu said:
“Musashi and Kojiro lived in an era where strength was everything, the Warring States period. In that world, the weakest thing a person had was their own mind. That’s still my theme. They lived as if they could die at any moment. And yet, rather than being on edge all the time, they were also gentle with others, they studied Buddhism, they embraced all of it.”
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The Weigh-In That Changed Everything
Abstract philosophy is easy to claim. Wakamatsu can point to the exact moment it was tested, and the exact moment it transformed him.
In November 2022, before his bout with Woo Sung Hoon at ONE 163: Akimoto vs. Petchtanong, “Little Piranha” failed to hit his mark on the scale, coming in four pounds over the flyweight limit.
He was fined and entered the match carrying the psychological weight of the violation. He would lose by TKO in the first round.
Wakamatsu said:
“I had thought, ‘I’m going to lose anyway,’ and I did. When I lost, it felt like the worst moment of my life. But now, I can see I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t lost then.”
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What followed was even harder.
Scheduled to face Xie Wei at ONE Fight Night 12: Superlek vs. Khalilov eight months later, Wakamatsu found himself in the same corner again – the same weight pressures and the same mental fragility threatening to swallow him whole.
The Japanese star missed weight yet again. This time, however, the outcome would be entirely different.
He recalled:
“I became aware of the mental and spiritual side of things for the first time. That’s when I was renewed. That was it, my biggest battle with myself.
“I told myself: tomorrow is unknown. Right now is the worst it can be, but tomorrow, I’m absolutely going to win. Don’t look at the bad. And in fact, the bad thing might actually be a good thing.”
Ultimately, he stopped Xie in the first round. The comeback had begun.
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The Book He Would Write
Nearly three years later, Wakamatsu stands as the ONE Flyweight MMA World Champion, ONE’s 2025 MMA Fighter of the Year, and one of the most compelling figures in all of combat sports.
The journey from the chiropractor’s office to the Saitama Super Arena, from a failed weigh-in to 26 pounds of gold at ONE 172: Takeru vs. Rodtang, is the kind of arc that Vagabond itself might admire.
Musashi’s quest was never really about defeating others. It was about becoming whole, becoming present, and becoming free of the self-sabotaging noise that keeps most people from their best.
Wakamatsu has arrived at the same conclusion, earned the hard way. And if he were ever to sit down and pen his own story, he would write just that:
“Conquer yourself – that’s the core of what I’d want to convey. Give everything you have. Live in the present moment.”
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