I read a comment on YouTube that he had a lot of shady things go on in his favor. This is the exact quote. "Aside from his fear of fighting outside Thailand, Khaosai and his team were notorious for delaying and postponing his title defenses. That strategy disrupted the conditioning and training of his challengers. Come fight time the challengers always found themselves overweight due to Thailand Boxing Commissions tampered weighing scales further ruining their condition. This enabled Khaosai to score his multiple title defense. He was the Chris John of the 80's. Actually worse than Chris John."
He was a beast, but definitely overrated. His brother Khaokor was better IMO, and Watanabe would've beat him had they unified.
What @roughdiamond said. An absolute unit with big time power that he carried into the late rounds and an iron chin, similar to Sor Rungvisai. He never unified the belts though when there were some very good challengers kicking about who Watanabe took on instead, not to speak of Watanabe himself. Lots of soft defences of his strap against undersized or unworthy challengers rather than the likes of Ballas, Poonterat, Konadu, Roman and Moon. His best wins imo were against Contreras, Orono and Kim in mitigating circumstances, though he beat them convincingly. Khaokor was a better fighter but had a shorter, less storied and dominant career despite beating better fighters. I'm trying to think without looking through various streams of info if it was Galaxy who the rumours were floating around that his camp gave opponents food poisoning. I could be wildly off the mark. Bouts staged in Thailand seem to be notorious for skullduggery towards the away fighters without meaning to sound jingoistic or xenophobic. Rounds stopped early with the home fighter being hurt, challengers entering the ring and being made to wait an age for the home fighter to enter, corrupt judging. Flea and boran know more about this than me.
This guy gets bashed unnecessarily. Yes, he was legit. Some have tried to posit that his less accomplished bro. was better than him. And before somebody counters with just because he's in the HOF, it doesn't mean he was legit, there are less accomplished guys in there. It's ironic that a guy like Brian Mitchell, who also had a long reign, but didn't fight any of his contemporaries, save Tony Lopez, gets overrated, while this guy gets underrated on here. True, Mitchell was forced to fight on the road, but his overall comp. was worse than that of Galaxy. You also have McGuigan, Gatti and Mancini the HOF. Although, he didn't get on American TV, the Ring and KO covered this guy during his heyday and he was rated very highly by them. But ''experts" who weren't around at that time, scour YouTube videos and boxrec to retroactively decide he wasn't a great fighter.
Is there actual evidence that any of the above happened in title fights involving him. Generalizing about shenanigans in Thai boxing is meaningless unless you can tie it to him. Is there anything close to the largesse enjoyed by Coggi in Argentina. I haven't seen anything in his you tube fights to posit that there was. As for behind the scenes shenanigans against his opponents, I wouldn't rely on a YouTube comment that provides absolutely no evidence for its damning, if true, claim. Let's not even start with the corruption of the Latin based WBA and WBC. Blatant corruption to aid home fighters was certainly not limited to Thailand.
Get off your high horse, read what I put and stop nitpicking and misreading into things. I never said there was evidence or accused Galaxy or his camp of anything, hence my use of the word rumour. So there's no need for me to have to tie anything when I wasn't aiming an accusation. Ffs, I even went as far as to say that I wasn't even sure if it was Galaxy who I was thinking of. It was an idle rumination on something that I've seen mentioned over the years more than once, that's all. Nor did I say that the less than palatable practices are confined to Thailand even though blatant evidence exists on film, like the Arbachakov and Kittikasem rematch, to give an example of the most recent thing I've watched. You're right about Argentina, the Latin countries with the WBA etc. Most countries have home cooking to differing degrees, but since I never said or inferred otherwise, it's irrelevant to bring it up. The opening post referenced rumours and circumstantial happenings that have been ascribed to Galaxy and Thai boxing in general and I was merely following up on it without stating facts or hurling accusations. I wouldn't have even brought it up if it hadn't been mentioned in the OP. Like I said, there are posters on here who know more than me about it but rarely post any more, in part because of pedantic bollocks like this.
Yeah, because The Ring is infallible. And this was back when there was rarely footage circulated of these weight classes, with the only prominent footage pertaining to Galaxy. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't see any of Wantanabe. Nowadays, we have basically every title fight from the era, as obscure as it gets, and the entire record from a historical retrospective. And Thailand is notorious for gambling on matches. Its their culture. There was a proven match fixing as early as last month. But yet it didn't happen in '80s? And Khaokor was better the Khaosai, and fought the better opponents. His win over Moon is higher quality than any of Khaosai' s. Khaosai was consistent and a H2H force, I give him that, but he's not a Top 5 Thai fighter. Alot of Galaxy's legend comes from sport writers ('Thai Tyson') which people like to use to denigrate fighters like Corbett, Fitzsimmons as overhyped etc. Simple fact is there were more deserving, better Super flyweights.
Khaosai entered the Hall Of Fame in 1999, unfortunately we underestimate Khaokor who should be there as much as his brother.
I saw quite a few of Khaosai's fights live on Thai TV. There are a few things I think most people outside Thailand are not aware of. Firstly, when a world title fight is held in Thailand, both boxers have to stand around in the ring while a welcoming ceremony takes place. This involves sponsors placing garlands and/or gold chains around the necks of the boxers (usually only the Thai getting the gold), and maybe handing out gifts and cheques. I remember one of Khaosai's fights involved the boxers standing around for 45 minutes before the fight actually started. This wasn't cheating because both boxers went through the same thing, but Khaosai and his team knew what to expect. The second thing Thai promoters were notorious for was providing challengers with completely false records. I remember one boxer (Samson something) took on a guy who had never won a pro fight, and had only had a couple of bouts in total - he was maybe 0-2. This was quite easy to do with boxers from behind the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I can't recall any specific cases involving the Galaxy twins, though. Third, those judges and officials were all bought and paid for. They were put up in a nice hotel. No doubt they had a massage with happy ending or two. They were given the VIP treatment. In return, they knew what they had to do if they wanted to come back. Fourth, Khaosai was in a division that had very few contenders because all the really good boxers of that size at the time preferred to fight three pounds heavier at bantamweight. Khaosai's twin brother fought at bantamweight and didn't last very long as champion.
I remember the guy being a monster. He had an incredible build, with rumors of growth hormone usage at the end of his career. I have no idea the enhancement usage was true, or the shadiness of his fights.
