Two guys who strangely never met in the ring. In 1973 The Ring ranked them 1 and 2. Who would win in a 15 rd bout between them that year ? And to make it really fair, let's say the bout is held at neutral location instead of Venezuela or Thailand.
I think about a draw Two very fine champions, but very inconsistent. And if Venice Borkhorsor beat Betulio Gonzalez before the limit, I don't see why Chionoi couldn't have done the same. But Chionoi was also inconsistent the KO he suffered in 1974 against Susumu Hanagata should never have happened, his two defeats against Takeshi Nakamura, etc. We can put them just under the first tier at 112 lbs (Flyweight) composed of : Masao Ohba, Shoji Oguma, Miguel Canto, Yuri Arbachakov, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Fighting Harada, Muangchai Kittikasem, Pone Kingpetch, Hiroyuki Ebihara, Chocolatito, Juan Francisco Estrada, Junto Nakatani, Nonito Donaire.
The point about Borkhorsor vs. Gonzalez is interesting. Sight unseen, I think that Borkhorsor was simply a better flyweight than Chionoi, but I do question how well Gonzalez's style works against big bruising types. He doesn't move his feet much or box from the outside. And Chionoi was HUGE for flyweight. After that loss to Hanagata, he weighed 130 and 127.25 for his next two fights. I assume that had a lot to do with why he lost to Hanagata. He couldn't even make weight for that one. No way is Oguma a tier above Gonzalez, or really a first-tier fighter at flyweight. The two were of similar quality, but Gonzalez had a better record. For a long time Oguma was a bit like Jimmy Young. He had one great win and he always gave the top guys a good fight, but he usually came up short at the end. With the wins over Chan-hee Park, he did have a second act to his career that Young never did, and prime Oguma never really had performances as listless as some of Gonzalez's, so I don't think that there's a huge gulf between them. Gonzalez simply has more and better wins.
