I'm just wondering if ESB have any comment on one of the most massively overlooked fighters of the past dozen years, Japan-born boxing wizard Tokuyama Masamori (or Hong Chang-soo, his Korean name). Many view him as the superflyweight of the decade, held the WBC SFW title between 2000 and 2006 and retired as champion.
He is a Japanese Korean fighter with excellent skill. It was rumored that even Hasegawa ducked him. In fact, Tokuyama outclassed Hasegawa in a sparring match. But he was knocked out by Kawashima,a relatively one dimensional fighter in his prime. The fight between prime Montiel and prime Tokumyama could have been great one. I think their best weight is in the super fly weight and both of them were prime in the same era. I favor prime Montiel if they had fought.
To be fair Katsushige was a tough and heavy-handed *******, and Masamori finished 2-1 against him. His wins during his title run(s) are incredibly impressive.
Two wins over a prime Penalosa speaks will of his abilty, as do the victories over Cho, Kirilov, and Navarro. He did get blown out in one by Kawashima, but defeated him pretty easily in the rubber match, by all accounts. Probably deserves to be rated in the top 10 all time at jr. banmtamweight and I could see him being rated as high as number five.
Both Penalosa fights were highly controversial though. I can't rate him high in all time status of the super flyweight becasue he shared the relatively same era with such notable fighters as Darchinian and Montiel. Even other fellow Japanes fighters in the super fly weight should be mentioned such as Jiro Watanabe and Hirohi Kawashima. In his prime, Tokuyama exhibited higly techinal skills to outbox various type of boxers. He was especially good at timing and taking a right distance against his opponents.
I was a bit of a fan of this guy when he was rolling around, he really intrigued me...He was my dark horse fighter that no one really talked about at the time and I had a hard time getting footage of him, so he was a bit of a mystery to me aswell. But once I saw a bit of him I was impressed, even though he gave a few uninspiring performances. As been mentioned a very good technical boxer type with impressive athleticism and speed...Not much power, questionable chin and not much of a tactician, tended to fade late because he bounced around and expended a lot of energy early...But would have been a handful for just about any of the best around at the time, at the very least for a while and especially the ones who took time to figure out slicksters...Probably would have knocked a fair few of them off aswell. Chased that Hasegawa fight hard but the timing probably wasnt right..Plus he was a bit of a controversial figure in Japan with his ties with North Korea.
