Sot Chitalada

I saw most of his (and Galaxys) defences on TV in the UK, IIRC their manager was a Brit and did a deal with ITV to show the fights. He also came over here a few years prior to that and flattened a comebacking Charlie Magri. Great fighter with a very good left hook, he used to come down from nearly 10 stone to make Flyweight and it obviously caught up with him eventually.

 

I`ve got several of his fights, and your observations of him are spot on. I do wonder though how far he could have gone had he been more dedicated, he was a pretty good fighter after all.

 

Who was it he KO'd with 6 or 7 consecutive left hooks? I'd had no idea he was poor trainer though...

 

How would he go against Galaxy?

I always thought he was another accomplished name around Galaxy that for whatever reason KG never fought, which in my book hurt his legacy.

 

So Sot dropped 30 pounds regularly for fights?

That's a massive fraction of his entire bodyweight! :blood:nut

 

A few of the Thais around that time had reputations for excessive weight loss, I've no idea how true it is but it was mentioned a few times that the walked around way over the lightweight limit.

 

Thats a little harsh on Galaxy IMHO, Galaxy was a super-flyweight and Chitalada never fought above fly. Its not a big difference in weight but you can't blame a fighter for not fighting a guy who never fought in his weight class.

 

I was meant to see him fight live against Duke McKenzie, but got Notice/Waters instead [sigh] as Sot pulled out.

I think he was ruined by insane training that meant he got down to his proper fighting weight (around 124) and then loss a further 10% of body weight, as was what was considered the way to do things in Thailand.

I saw the Magri bout on TV and he was magic, I think he would schooled the then undefeated Duke that night, as he was still near his peak, it is just a shame I never got to find out.

 

The hometown decision in the Kim rematch was truly a horrible one. Good, exciting fighter, but I just didn't like the scoring in some of his bouts.

 

I dont blame him as such but Galaxy's record is pretty weak compared to the accolades he gets.

They could have been best mates for all I know and thats why they never fought but my point is there were fighters around Galaxy who could have seriously given his resume some beefing up and he never fought them.
I think its more "harsh" that blokes like Watanabe and Roman, who were doing pretty much the exact same thing as Galaxy, at the same time just with a different belt (and actually arguably had better records then him) arent considered anywhere near as great(By the allmighty Ring anyway).

 

I rate both higher by a fair margin. Galaxy probably rates around #5 at the weight for me of that era.

 

I was at that fight too.. OMG .. Dean Water was so outa shape , Horace was a man i liked but had that sad eye injury at around the time he was supposed to box anyone decent.. wasn't it odd that Mason , Notice and Bruno all had similar retina injuries, They were all sparring mates.. what a coincidence.....

Chitalada was incredible, i remember afriend of mine Charles Atkinson bringing him to the Uk to train in Liverpool.. He was an understated atg.. Sot had skills........

 

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