ATG FLYWEIGHT TOURNIE: Semi-Final 1 - Midget Wolgast scores Wide UD over Chartchai Chionoi

Midget Woglast emerges fresh from his fascinating points win over Frankie Genaro to confront the tournament dark horse, Chartchai Chionoi who is now one upset from the final. Chionoi, it will be remembered, perhaps benefited from Peter Kane's shock elimination of tournament favourite Miguel Canto.

Midget Wolgast (Seeded 4) is one of the most outrageous geniuses in fistic history. His boxing was a conflation of dizzying defensive wonderment and mobile attacking brilliance. He feinted his opponent forwards and then moved off the center line, his reactions to any offensive foray a deft slip of the head, but his own offense was what differentiates him from other great defensive wizards. Wolgast, who couldn’t punch to save himself, was unequaled at firing off blows while on the move. His bread and butter was a shrill pop of a jab that he could land whatever angles his balletic movement inflicted, and as an improviser, he was second to none. When the time came to scrap, he moved in on his man, head working like a cat about to strike, deploying a swarming body attack of dizzying variety. He was a jazz musician in a pair of boxing gloves, and domination was his art.

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Chartchai Chionoi, seeded eight, seemed just another fighter when he turned professional way back in the late fifties; by the time of his retirement in 1975 he stood as a two-time flyweight champion of the world and had contested no fewer than thirteen world-title fights. He was a true giant of the flyweight division. Glimmers of his huge potential shone through in his torrid 1963 defeat of Japanese 112lb champion Seisaku Saito in an otherwise bad year. Chionoi’s flirtation with a world ranking was inconsistent and the level of opposition he met equally so. It was something of a surprise then, when upon tempting champion Walter McGowan out to Thailand in December of 1966 he lifted the world flyweight title on a seventh-round stoppage. Chionoi’s strategy was machismo of which a Mexican would have been proud, essentially allowing McGowan to hit him with that cultured left while exacting a terrible tole with his own right. McGown was physically unequal to the task and crumbled not once but twice, the rematch in London especially exemplary of the Thai’s brutal style.

For his second defense, Chionoi matched a man more able to dish out punishment than even he in the form of Efren Torres. The two staged a trilogy in a storm of blood, their first fight, one of the great flyweight championship contests, as savage as anything that can be seen in the modern annals of boxing history, won by the champion in thirteen rounds. A terrible eye-injury cost him the title in their 1969 rematch, but Chinoi returned, mercilessly, thrillingly, once more dominating his brutal opponent with a body-attack now honed to perfection. But three fights against so vicious an opponent perhaps signaled the end of his absolute prime. In his very next he seemed shell-shocked and vulnerable in dropping his title to Erbito Salavarria. Even so marred he was capable of foiling the plans of elite fighters, ranked men, and his resume is bolstered by the names of Fritz Chervet, Berkeret Charvanchai and Berabe Villacampo.

A short-lived though devastating peak and some patchy results before and after his two-pronged tear at the division mean the upper limits of the top ten are beyond him, but there isn’t another fighter in this tournament quite like Chionoi.

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Who would win this clash of the titans under the following rules?

15 round fight.
1950s referee.
8oz boxing gloves.

Cast your vote and explain yourself in a post below! You have 3 days.

 

Yeah, I think Wolgast, after a very cautious start, would take some liberties here and Chionoi would get really busted up. Wide UD is the shout.

 

About six hours left to name a finalist.

 

Midget Wolgast lost hardly a round against Chartchai Chionoi and progress to the final of the tournament after a performance of astonishing poise. Chionoi, whose patient, countering plan bore almost no fruit through seven, was reduced to aggressively rushing Wolgast only to find himself consistently outfought on the inside on the occasions he got there.

Wolgast sparred his way through the final three rounds as Chionoi all but rolled up the white flag, a dashing, two-handed attack in the fifteenth and final round aside. This was also the only round Chionoi won clear.