I've only seen a little footage on Harada, but I was impressed by what I saw. I know he is in the HOF and whatever, but I want to know more about him, and what he was like as a fighter. I've just watched rounds 4 and 5 of his first fight with Eder Jofre, and I noticed a fighter with very good skills, a nice left jab and left to the body. He also looked quick in hand and foot, and seemed to have decent power as he rocked Jofre to the ropes with a big right uppercut in the fourth. Any info would be fantastic.
.............I have quite a few of his fights now thanks to Raging B()ll, whom I would call the best authority here on the man. Hope he sees this thread. Harada, as you saw, was a squat, blocklike little guy. He used his jab to bore his way inside with light, springy footwork and he'd whale away with both hands. Just an insane workrate. Not great defensively, but was fairly adept at picking just the right range to where his opponent couldn't square up on him and land with authority. Good chin too. His fights with Kingpetch are examples of how he could just physically overwhelm a good opponent, especially the first fight. He got a very raw deal in the rematch. The Jofre wins are great too. Jofre may have been having to shed weight until the eleventh hour in their first fight, but he was in better shape the second time and still got whipped. The only fight I have of his where he didn't seem to win outright was the Medel fight. Joe Medel was a murderous puncher who stopped him in the sixth. He came back to beat Medel by decision later. In a nutshell; tremendous stamina, even better workrate (perhaps the most impressive I've seen in any fighter except Amstrong), good chin, physically strong, quick........he was something. Japan's best fighter ever, I think.
Harada is a legend. There isn't a fighter active today below featherweight who would be competitive with him.
harada was a hurricane.......kinda like a flyweight/bantamweight version of henry armstrong. he was a swarmer with good power and a great chin.
Know this about Harada: he should have been a three weight champ (in a day and age where there was only one champion per weight division and only 8 weight divisions): at flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight. He got absolutely shafted against Johnny Famechon for the featherweight title in his first attempt at it. He won that fight by a good 5 points and I say that being an Aussie and being quite partial to Johnny and his fighting style. He also got dudded in the rematch with Pone Kingpetch, which of the 12 rounds I've seen of the 15, Harada took a good 8 and scored a couple of knockdowns along the way (which weren't counted incidentally). The only fight he really lost in his prime was to Lionel Rose, who put on a career best performance and would have beaten near anyone that night so long as they didn't have a big punch to expose his somehwat fragile chin. Harada is the greatest Asian fighter, by quite some distance as far as I'm concerned. And as a flyweight, I take him to beat pretty much anyone. As a bantam I think he'd be top ten as well.
..........Ooops. Thanks, S_S, I too have the Rose fight, and incorrectly claimed the Medel fight was the only one I've seen that he really seemed to lose. I agree, Rose was masterful that night, and won it going away.
No worries Sal, and an oops from my end for forgetting that Medel got the better of him in his prime too. :good
Cheers for that everyone, anyone got any links to his fights or where I can get more? I've seen all youtube can offer, and I have to say I'm impressed by the little I've saw.
.............I wish I had the ability to copy DVD's on my computer, I'd cook up a few for ya. In lieu of that, there's always Raging B()ll. That's where I got all these from anyway.
