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Your Favorite Thai Boxer?
I decided to watch a lot of boxing from over there and look at all their great boxers a few years ago so this is an awesome subject for me. Of course there's a lot of great ones from the days of Pone Kingpetch, Chartchai Chionoi to Sot Chitalada and Khaosai Galaxy (Their GOAT), Samart Payakaroon then Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Veeraphol Sahaprom, Eagle Kyowa, Oleydong Sithsamerchai then the guys we have today like Sor Rungvisiai who incredibly somehow beat Roman Gonzalez (What a fight too!). A lot of great fighters who were fun to watch. Khaosai/Pone are undoubtedly #1 and #2 on most lists but who's your favorite?
For me it's a tough one but I always loved Veeraphol and his style of fighting. He had a strong career in Muay Thai before boxing and amazingly become World Champion in his 4th fight against an opponent in his 60th. He lost it to Nana Konadu who had a lot more experience but then won the WBC Belt and held it for 14 defences (The 4 fights with Nishioka were all great (The 4th is his best performance, just amazing). He became a lot more technical after the Konadu loss, I just thought it was great how he mixed up his attack. He could jab, had an awesome right hand lead, and would go to the body really good as well. Always exciting and brought the fight to you. It's unfortunate we didn't get to see him against more top opponents, but he was a great fighter and the 1st Hasegawa fight is a classic. Definitely one of the best fights I have seen, they just went to war.
Khaosai is a close second, this man was just a machine and destroyed most of his opponents. He was technically pretty good too, it wasn't like he was just a brawler but he did like to brawl which made all his fights fun to watch. He scored some incredible one-punch knockouts too (Edgar Monserrat, Ari Blanca to name a couple). He's also notable for being one of the few great champions to go out on top. Great, great fighter. One of the hardest/best punchers ever.
Pong is probably my 3rd favorite, and I still view him as one of the greatest Flyweights of recent times even after the way his career ended (Just too much wear and tear, never should've lost to those guys). Similar to Veeraphol with Nishioka he had the fights with Naito which were crazy to say the least. He had a lot of good wins, Malcolm Tunacao, Edgar Sosa, Naito, Miranda, Kameda, Shimizu etc. 97 bouts though, that's scary. Great skilled boxer/puncher he could do both.
Please let me know who you like and what you think are their best fights etc.
For me it's a tough one but I always loved Veeraphol and his style of fighting. He had a strong career in Muay Thai before boxing and amazingly become World Champion in his 4th fight against an opponent in his 60th. He lost it to Nana Konadu who had a lot more experience but then won the WBC Belt and held it for 14 defences (The 4 fights with Nishioka were all great (The 4th is his best performance, just amazing). He became a lot more technical after the Konadu loss, I just thought it was great how he mixed up his attack. He could jab, had an awesome right hand lead, and would go to the body really good as well. Always exciting and brought the fight to you. It's unfortunate we didn't get to see him against more top opponents, but he was a great fighter and the 1st Hasegawa fight is a classic. Definitely one of the best fights I have seen, they just went to war.
Khaosai is a close second, this man was just a machine and destroyed most of his opponents. He was technically pretty good too, it wasn't like he was just a brawler but he did like to brawl which made all his fights fun to watch. He scored some incredible one-punch knockouts too (Edgar Monserrat, Ari Blanca to name a couple). He's also notable for being one of the few great champions to go out on top. Great, great fighter. One of the hardest/best punchers ever.
Pong is probably my 3rd favorite, and I still view him as one of the greatest Flyweights of recent times even after the way his career ended (Just too much wear and tear, never should've lost to those guys). Similar to Veeraphol with Nishioka he had the fights with Naito which were crazy to say the least. He had a lot of good wins, Malcolm Tunacao, Edgar Sosa, Naito, Miranda, Kameda, Shimizu etc. 97 bouts though, that's scary. Great skilled boxer/puncher he could do both.
Please let me know who you like and what you think are their best fights etc.
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