Yong-Soo Choi vs. Yamato Mitani - sleeper trilogy of the 90's?

Whoa...easy there, chief. That definitely wasn't meant to be a sly dig at you, personally. Sorry if you took it as such, but...my takeaway here is that, since that rock was kicked over with all these worms crawling out, you have a bunch else simmering beneath the surface and that my post you quoted, while it may have been a triggering catalyst to your reply in the moment, isn't really itself the bulk of the issue here. I'm not much fussed about rehashing all of this circuitously ad nauseum; suffice to say that I was only putting one person on blast there, and if you felt swept up as collateral damage or see yourself obliged through your loyalties to see a line drawn in the sand with me on the adversary's side, well... again, sorry for that consequence, but I won't apologize for calling out (and continuing to ridicule) the arrogance of that kid barging into my thread after years of having not interacted (and having previously never had anything but mutual respect in our interactions during his early days on the forum) like he suddenly walks on water and only his opinion counts. I don't honestly care how many top-10 lists he wrote or how much time he puts into hyper-specific areas of study... I'm simply never going to be convinced he's the least bit in a superior position to you or I to comment on anything to do with the sport. You're welcome to feel differently, just as you're welcome to disagree with Ioka being rated highly among the smalls all-time, but what neither you nor Flea is entitled to do is to dismiss as untenable the very idea of questioning whether he compares with those past greats (and if you'll recall my thread was posed in the form of a question) and make disrespectful ad hominem attacks upon the credibility of anyone even suggesting the possibility, as though it were someone asking if Andre Berto would beat SRR or something. You can feel strongly a certain way about the issue, but to call it a "spurious premise"? I think you need to relax. My posing the question is just as valid as you having your opinion about it.

Anyway, you are, IMO, a good poster. No less so than was Flea, here, once upon a time (good, mind you, not great, not some god among men, not even among the best on here as it stands now, let alone in the place's glory days). I'd rather the board not lose you, but if you need a break or to be done, then you should by all means follow your instincts. Godspeed.

 

Anyhow, in combing the internet seabed on my quixotic hunt for the '94 match (using Mitani's full name in kanji and Choi's in both hangul/hanja) I found the former's profile on Facebook, as well as the separate page for the boxing gym he now runs in Chiba. It turns out got hitched two years ago in Sakura to his longtime sweetheart Michiko, and, surprisingly, his indomitable foe Choi attended, over two decades after their last match.

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I'm not sure why I find that so moving, but I do.

 

I was thinking of sending Yamato a message asking if he knows of any extant footage of the first Choi fight or if there were actually even cameras present, but I'm not sure what if any his fluency in English might be, and don't want to send a clunky Google translation. Anybody speak the language and mind crafting a quick, polite query to send (or have me do)?

 

@Boxing Prospect