Pone Kingpetch vs Fighting Harada

At 19 years of age, a Tokyo youth with only one defeat became the first Japanese boxer since Yoshio Shirai to hold a world championship. Fighting Harada achieved the distinction by subjecting the experienced Pone Kingpetch to sustained pressure for nearly 11 rounds before knocking out the flyweight champion at 2:50 of the eleventh at the Kuramae Kokugikan in Tokyo on October 10, 1962.

Kingpetch, Thailand’s first world champion, entered with a record of 25 victories and three defeats. He had taken the title from Argentina’s Pascual Pérez in Bangkok in 1960, knocked Pérez out in their return contest and made successful defences against Mitsunori Seki and Kyo Noguchi. Tall for a flyweight and accomplished at long range, he was attempting his fourth defence. Harada had won 26 of 27 professional contests, but his only defeat had occurred less than four months earlier against Edmundo Esparza. The champion weighed 111 pounds, and the challenger was at the flyweight limit of 112.

Harada gave Kingpetch no opportunity to establish the measured contest he wanted. From the opening bell he advanced behind a busy jab, moving his head as he crossed the space between them and then attacking with both hands. His looping right repeatedly passed over Kingpetch’s low left. The champion tried to maintain the centre of the ring in the second, but Harada drove him towards a corner and struck in combinations until Kingpetch held. Another attack near the bell sent the Thai backwards into the ropes.

The third and fourth followed the same course. Harada bounced forward, jabbed his way into range and released hooks and rights before the champion could settle. Kingpetch sought to spear him with the left jab and catch him with straight counters, but the challenger’s head movement made that work uncertain. Harada’s attacks were not wild rushes. He changed the level of his punches, worked to the body and then brought the right over the champion’s lowered guard. By the fifth, Kingpetch was already being forced to spend much of each round defending or retreating.

Harada raised the pace again in the sixth. Several rights landed before a left hook shook Kingpetch and brought the crowd to its feet. The challenger followed with both hands, forcing the champion to clinch until his head had cleared. Kingpetch rallied in the seventh, using his jab and straight right to obtain a little room, but he could not keep Harada away for the full round. Near the bell, another two-handed assault drove him across the ring.

The eighth marked the beginning of the champion’s final decline. Harada crowded him against the ropes and struck repeatedly to head and body. A sequence of left hands left Kingpetch unsteady near the close, though referee Sangvien Hiranlekha did not administer a count. The champion rose slowly for the ninth but fought back with courage, exchanging at close quarters before Harada’s greater strength again prevailed. Kingpetch landed one of his best rights late in the round, striking the challenger cleanly on the jaw, but Harada accepted it without faltering and resumed his advance.

When the bell sounded for the tenth, Harada was already across the ring while Kingpetch remained on his stool. The champion was allowed several additional seconds before standing. Harada immediately attacked, throwing without pause to the body and head. A right hand caused Kingpetch’s legs to buckle, but he stayed upright and attempted to answer. His blows now served chiefly to keep the challenger away. Harada continued to move on lively legs, showing no sign that the pace had weakened him.

Kingpetch had fallen far behind. Referee Hiranlekha had Harada ahead 49–46 after ten rounds, while judge Nat Fleischer scored it 49–41 and Koichi Takada 50–38. The difference among the totals reflected the scoring system then in use, but all three officials agreed that the challenger held a substantial lead. Kingpetch therefore required a knockout to retain the championship.

The end came in the last seconds of the eleventh. Harada stunned Kingpetch with two rights and drove him into his own corner. He then delivered a prolonged series of punches from both hands as the champion, unable to escape or return effectively, was supported by the ropes and turnbuckle. Kingpetch slowly sank towards the floor, whereupon Hiranlekha ruled a knockdown and began the count. Exhausted and badly beaten, the champion remained down. The knockout was completed at 2:50.

Harada’s victory gave Japan its second world champion, ten years after Shirai first won the flyweight crown. The contest was selected as Japan’s fight of the year. Kingpetch, however, recovered the championship three months later, taking a 15-round majority decision over Harada in Bangkok. Harada’s first reign was brief, but the relentless pressure, stamina and strength displayed in Tokyo provided an early indication of the qualities that would later carry him to the bantamweight championship and victories over Éder Jofre.

I’ve heard Harada described as a crude pressure fighter, but that sells him badly short. He was only 19 and coming off his first defeat, yet he went straight at an experienced world champion with educated pressure. He moved his head on the way in, worked behind a busy jab and kept stepping across Kingpetch rather than following him. The looping right over the champion’s low left was there from the beginning.

Kingpetch was no mug. He had beaten Pascual Pérez twice, was Thailand’s first world champion and knew how to control a contest at range. The trouble was that Harada never allowed him the room. By the middle rounds, Kingpetch was holding after taking a heavy left hook, and although he had some success with the jab and straight right in the seventh and ninth, he could not discourage the younger man. Harada took his best punches and came back harder.

By the tenth, Kingpetch’s legs were going, and Harada knew it. In the eleventh, he drove him into a corner, landed two rights and kept punching until the champion went down and was counted out at 2:50. Kingpetch regained the title in Bangkok three months later, which shows his quality, but Tokyo belonged completely to Harada. This was the first clear sign of the fighter who would later outwork Éder Jofre twice: relentless, clever and much better technically than people remember.