One of the wonderfully enduring qualities of boxing is its effortless ability to blast a hole straight through everything you think you know. You accumulate half a lifetime of ring knowledge, factor in every conceivable component and then reel back stunned as all logic and sense flies out of the window.<o></o> <o> </o> My father, as worldly a man as I have ever met, sounded like an innocent who had missed the starting gun when he told me some years ago of his reaction to Willie Pep's fourth round knockout defeat to Sandy Saddler. "Nobody knocked out Pep," dad said, still shaking his head forty years after the event. "It just wasn't done."<o></o> http://fightbeat.com/article_detail.php?AT=606
harada was the man. probably the best asian fighter ever. he kicked the shit out of kingpetch in their first fight when he was only like 19 or so. he also should've been awarded w/ the featherweight title when he was robbed by that aussie.
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Harada was a killer in the ring, and one of, if not the most, intimidating and relentless "Little Men" ever. I can rate only Ruben Olivares over him in that category. He was one of the very few boxers (not MMA fighters) I have ever seen actually do splits in the ring before his fights. I am going to have to respectfully disagree with my good colleague joony about the Lionel Rose fight, however. Rose put on a clinic that night, a beautiful exhibition of boxing to thwart Harada's rushes and won about 9-10 rounds, IMO. Harada was the better fighter of the two at their respective peaks, however. Harada is rated by many boxing folks as the Best Asian Fighter Ever yes, but Flash Elorde gets my vote in that category. Harada was a Truly Great Fighter.
Harada is without question, one of the greatest fighters of who ever lived. AN absolute machine, with a workrate nearly unmatched throughout history.
Jofre struggled badly to make weight for this fight, and it showed. The bigger surprise IMO is that Harada won the rematch with Jofre, when Jofre was in shape, and he won it even more decisively than their first fight. Go figure. :dunno: The Jofre rematch was Harada's best all-around performance IMO.
