Harada taking the flyweight title from the excellent Kingpetch. He was only 19. This performance has gotta rank along side Benitez over Cervantes as the two best all time performances by teenagers. Harada was a beast, but still a bit raw in this fight. He was more polished and refined when he upset Eder Jofre to take the title at 118. Harada is still the Japanese GOAT, sorry Inoue.
For right now I agree - we'll have to see how Inoue's plays out although he was robbed of a knockout his last fight over Donaire by an interfering referee - Nonito was given a long count, turned his back and quit and the referee physically blocked Inoue from finishing him off.
Inoue can overtake him, but it's gonna take more quality wins. Harada has the two wins over Jofre, and Jose Medel, who was better than anyone Inoue's beaten.
Kingpetch had a weird career ... some have said he’s like middleweight Robinson, regaining the title, losing it, regaining etc I think he’s a great deal more like Jimmy Carter in that regard ... pretty good boxer with almost no power whose main attribute was being a 5’7 skyscraper in the flyweight division... not a great fighter by any stretch
I often thought of him as similar to Benvenuti - a playboy whose outside-the-ring lifestyle sometimes caught up with him, but who came up big when he trained for rematches. I used to be on the fence about how to rate him as a fighter, owing to his inconsistency and the controversy over some of the decisions he received on his home turf, but his rematch performance against Pascual Perez convinced me that he was the goods:
That fight was basically Harada's Duran-Buchanan moment. Ironically, Harada himself would fall victim to a teenage substitute when he lost his BW title to Rose.
I don't see Inoue ever surpassing Harada. Who can he beat which would equate to one win over Jofre? Let alone two? And ability wise, I'd pick him to lose to Medel.
There’s several Asians with better wins resumes than Harada. I don’t really think that’s what sets him apart. Jofre X2 Kingpetch Medel Rudkin Caraballo Not bad, but certainly not worthy of his ATG standing. Ability and accomplishments are what set him apart, even if the judges prevented him from reaching his ceiling there, too.
