35 years ago today: Park Chong-Pal vs. Vincent Joseph Curto II

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If you've never seen Park, get ready to enjoy your new favorite body smashing glass cannon with deltoids and lats to die for.

He was the first man to ever capture a super middleweight boxing championship by defeating an incumbent champion (Murray Sutherland, whom Park got off the canvas to kayo in a war in '84, had been the inaugural titlist and would hot potato his IBF strap that night in his very first defense). He also was South Korea's rematch king. In return assignments, he went 6-1-1 (5) against Seung Hwan Kang (draw), Kenji Shibata (W-KO5), Mana Premchai (W-KO4), Kyung Min Ra (W-KO4, avenging his knockout loss to Ra just a few months earlier), Chang Hwan Noh (W-KO9), Vinnie Curto here (W-KO15), Lindell Holmes (W-SD15) and Fully Obel (L-UD15).

Curto, from my neck of the woods, had neither Park's thunderous power (or physique), nor his vulnerability. He was a decent overall hand in the ring, with a toughness honed from his incredibly tragic background (seriously, read about his life if you want to feel especially horrible) and would probably be a little better known if not for withdrawing from a match against fellow Massachussets pug and then rising star Marvin Hagler (fresh off his kayo victory over Willie "The Worm" Monroe in their rematch) in '77. This pair of battles with Park would prove to be his only tastes of world title contention.

 

Moddos, might I impose on your powers of pasty portability?

 

Yeah, this pair with Vinnie (who was practically made to stylistic order for Chong-Pal to tee off on, with just slightly too average a punch of his own to be too dangerous) as well as those against Obel, Holmes and Min Ra can be found online, as well as the Naito and Sutherland fights.

What would top a wishlist would be the OPBF title defenses versus Kenji Shibata, or the battle with dynamite-fisted Kittitian journeyman Roy Gumbs. I know there's footage of them out there in the world somewhere, just not readily uploaded anywhere that I'm aware.

 

Fitting that Park's spotless record in rematches was only thwarted - and SMW reign ended - by the also underrated (and fellow future In Chul Baek kayo victim) Obelmejias, with the Venezuelan himself most known for going a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful 0-2 against their era's true rematch king, Marvelous Marvin Hagler. If you weren't aware, Marv went an absolutely ridiculous 12-0 (10) in matches against familiar foes.

Little known fact: Hagler was supposed to have a rematch of his most storied fight (or at least most violent and cleebrated, as the Leonard chess match is perhaps just as often discussed in posterity) and probably improve that to 13-0 (11) - with both his and Hearns' camps agreeing to meet again in June of '86, hence Arum putting the Hitman in a showcase versus Schuler to split the bill with Hagler vs. Mugabi, but of course Marv ended up needing a long recovery from that night, by the conclusion of which the long-sought chance to get his mitts on Leonard was in play.

 

Yeah, finding footage of Kenji Shibata (not to be confused with the late actor, apparently famed far beyond the boxer - who also bears no relation to Kuniaki, as it happens - and that's part of the problem, any search for the name just turns up results for the former instead of the latter) whatsoever is a fool's errand.

 

I'd been meaning to make a CPP thread for some time actually, in anticipation of someone soon (eventually, presumably) becoming the first person to hear a sitting bridgerweight champ, of course after we crown one in a necessarily 'vacant' inauguration match a`la Sutherland vs. Ernie Singletary in '84. The only division to 'be born' and sanctioned for championships since super middle is, I believe, straw? (what with cruiser having had it beat by a few years).

His body punching is really a treat, every night at the office and not excepting this one...so when last month, circling back to him again, I noticed this one's anniversary coming up, I made a mental note (along with a literal one in my Google calendar) to do a writeup....but didn't get around to it until half an hour before midnight, down to the wire after watching Wrestlemania.

My research earlier in the day had led me down the rabbit hole on Curto's childhood, which I'm not going to rehash here...but feel free to Google if you'd like the last of your faith in humanity shaken.

 

I also wanted to shine a spotlight on PCP because whenever the super middleweights' legacies are ranked, once getting past the consensus five greatest (Calzaghe, Ward, Kessler, Jones & Froch - maybe not in that exact order for everyone, but I'm cool with it) there inevitably winds up a scattering of mentions for the likes of Benn, Eubank, Toney, maybe Ottke ..but never Park. With his two reigns (IBF and inaugural WBA, combined for 9 total defenses with a sum record of 11-1 in title fights) and being the starting point of the division's lineage (as Murray Sutherland technically never fulfilled the requirement of 'beating the man to be the man's) he merits a respectful nod. Now, is he top 15 h2h all time at the weight? Maybe not...just too poor a chin for that. But he certainly ought to be higher than BoxRec places him, just barely squeaking past the bubble and making its top 50, at, currently #49. Behind both Dirrell brothers, mind you, and Alfredo Angulo whose record at 168 stands at 4-4, all in ten or eight rounders.