Anyone here knowledgeable about North Korean boxing history?

That is interesting, Tokuyoma is the only one id ever heard of, and having only seen the Penalosa fights, I didn't have much good to say about him either.

Very intrigued by this thread, mate.

 

I hear that Kim Jong Un boxed as an amateur at the age of 4 vs adults and went 50-0. Amazing.

 

Lavka Sim?

 

Is Mongolian.

 

Mongolian

 

Pang Chol-mi is currently a world class amateur from North Korea and she won an Olympic Bronze medal back in 2024.

Choi Hyun-mi is another female world class NK amateur and she went on to win the WBA featherweight and super-flyweight title, making her the second NK world champion after Tokuyama.

Tokuyama was also a deeply controversial figure in Japan during his reign iirc, due to his regular showings of nationalist pride, his insistence on walking out to the NK anthem with the NK flag, and because he became a symbol for Koreans living in Japan (Zainichi Koreans) as either a point of pride or as a point of shame. Interesting guy and a classy boxer in the ring.

North Koreans have also been surprisingly successful in amateur boxing for a nation their size, winning two gold medals, the first at the 1976 games at bantamweight with Ku Yong-jo, and at the 1992 games at flyweight with Choe Chol-su. They've also had a lot of their boxers qualify for the Olympics, which is again quite surprising that they have enough boxers at that good of a level to consistently be able to get their fighters at Olympics and big world comps.

 

Oh yeah!