kosai galaxy?... he was a unstoppable force that never fought a boxer he couldent beat. elorde?... held the 130lb uneversally recognized title for 7 years! villa?... mysterious fighter who beat the great wilde. harada?... twice beating eder and beating and disputing with pone. sahaprom?... wba bantam weight title in 4 fight and wbc batam title for 6 years. wongjongkam?... 6 year wbc flyweight champion who is on the comeback. pacquaio?... exiting intense fighter who is now a 4 or 5 division champion (depending on who you credit)
Definitely Harada in my opinion. The only man to ever beat Jofre in 78 fights, and he did it twice (although both were close), stopping Kingpetch and then losing a bad decision to him in the rematch, plus wins over Ebihara and Jose Medal. Flyweight and Bantamweight champion. I think Villa, Elorde, Pacquiao, and maybe Galaxy all could be argued for 2nd. Wonjongkam, sahamprom, and Kingpetch himself are a little off.
Fighting Harada is the clear cut #1 IMO. Others among the best include Pancho Villa, Manny Pacquiao, Flash Elorde, Hiroyuki Ebihara, Jung-Koo Chang, Pone Kingpetch, Jiro Watanabe, Sung-Kil Moon, Masao Ohba, Yoko Gushiken, etc. Galaxy has no argument IMO. Not very good on film combined with a terrible resume doesn't bode well for someone vying for an ATG spot. I still have yet to understand people's fascination with him.
I don't think Galaxy has an argument for the #1 spot at all either. Personally, I rate Harada, Pacquiao, Villa, and Elorde as the top 4, I might argue Ebihara and Kingpetch over Galaxy, but I'd say he's on the level all-time of Watanabe or Chang. People like his dominance, 19 defenses of his belt and 16 by knockout, avenged the lone loss in 50 fights. However, his division is historically weak, it was very weak at that period, and he didn't even fight the best available. He's top 10 all-time from Asia in my mind, but I don't think he'd make it in my top 5, although I don't believe Ebihara or Kingpetch are without question above him.
I guess Villa and Harada can slug it out at the moment. Paquiao is closing on them. We are in the presence of greatness.
His division was not very weak when he was fighting. The eighties is considered the superfly golden era and he didn't fight any of the other top fighters, bar a totally shot Rafael Orono. You had Orono, Ballas, Watanabe, Roman, Baby Rojas, Konadu, Moon, Laciar and others around at the time. Ebihara and Kingpetch fought during one of the best era's for the Flyweights and by contrast, they fought a considerable amount of quality opposition. Chang also beat some of the best of his era like zapata(twice really) and Chitalada.I rate him higher than Villa.
Mantequilla mimics my thoughts on this. His division was quite strong actually, he just never fought any of the top guys. I'd have favored guys like Roman, Konadu, Watanabe, etc to beat him handily as well. Much more skilled boxers.
Fighting Harada. His wins over Eder Jofre are pretty much enough to secure this place, and he was also robbed in a few big fights as well. Depending on how Pacquiao does in the next few years we may see a change, but at the minute it's definitely Harada.
Any opinions on Sahaprom now that his career has been over for a while. He was a very nice classy boxer-puncher.I tend to see him knocking Rafael Marquez out cold had they tried to unify.
How would you wager a prime Sahaprom would've done against Konadu? He dropped him early, but overall Konadu just had too much class and skill for him at that early stage of his career.
Galaxy is vastly over-rated. Harada at the moment with Pacman catching though. Pancho Villa is overlooked normally and deserves a mention as Sweet Pea says.
Other notables include Ceferino Garcia and guys like Rolando Navarette, Soo-Hwan Hong, Myung-Woo Yuh, Chan-Hee Park(whom I haven't seen footage of but have heard great things about), Chartchai Chionoi, Luisito Espinosa, Yutaka Niida, etc.
