Just thinking about Eijiro Murata vs Lupe Pintor and Jeff Chandler I. He gives a great performance in both of these fights (not robberies) only to come up with a draw against IMO the 2 best bantam weights of his time. You can make a case that he won, lost or drew in either fight. I had Murata narrow against Pintor and scored the Chandler fight for Jeff once and a draw on 2nd watch. But he came so close to beating 2 top 15 ATG (20 at the worst IMO) bantamweights. got any memories of either one of these fights? Or another fighter who came so close to glory but it remained just beyond their grasp??? just in case you are interested in seeing either one. https://www.asianboxing.info/videos/eijiro-murata-v-lupe-pintor This content is protected
I'm not much use on your original question here as I've not seen Murata's fight against Pintor, and it's been a long time since I saw the Chandler fight you're referring to as well, so I'm a little hazy there. My memory of it was more or less in line with yours: one of those draws which was acceptable, but probably a shade kinder to one guy (Murata in this case) than the other. I didn't quite think you could make a case for Murata winning, but you could maybe make a case that he didn't lose outright. Funnily enough while we're on the subject, Chandler is a guy I really need to watch more of. We've all got those odd little blind spots, top fighters and champions that for whatever reason we're not quite as clued up on as we should be, and Chandler is one of mine. Expanding on your point about similar fighters who missed out on greater acclaim by small margins, well I'm not being very original here as I've made this point about him before, but I'd say Reggie Johnson fits the bill. Got his hands on a couple of titles in the end, of course, but his record is quite deceptive. With a bit more luck and a different judge here and there, he could easily have been something like 2-1-1, hell maybe even 3-1 against Toney, JD Jackson and Castro and nobody would have felt it undeserved. Instead he's 0-4 against them, which is very rough justice. Just never seemed to get the luck when he needed it. Personally I thought Reggie was robbed blind in the first Castro fight, beat Jackson by 2-3 rounds and lost, but only very, very narrowly, against Toney, to the point where I wouldn't have begrudged him getting a share of the spoils there. Not seen the Castro return bout, but most who have seem to think it was more or less as bad as the first.
I was watching both of these fights awhile back, I think I might have gone for Murata barely beating Pintor and Jeff barely beating Murata. But fighting in Japan probably helped his case a lot.
