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Much Ado About Nothing: Wanheng Menayothin's 54-0 By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Sun, 27 Oct 2019  Wanheng Menayothin. Long reigning WBA minimumweight champion Chayapon Moonsri, better known as Wanheng Menayothin successfully defended his world title for the 14th time by wide points decision over South African challenger Simphiwe Koncko recently in Chonburi, Thailand. With the win, Menayothin raised his pro record to 54-0 stretching even more his lead over the previous record set by American Floyd Mayweather, Jr. who retired unbeaten with 50-0 surpassing the previous standard of 49-0 held for a long time by the revered Rocky Marciano. To be fair, there have been boxers who ended up or started their careers with better statistics as Mexican great Ricardo "El Finito" Lopez who retired as world champion with an undefeated record in 52 fights, marred only by a single draw. Then there was American all time great Sugar Ray Robinson who started his career without a loss in 91 fights. There was also another Mexican great fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. who went unbeaten in nearly 90 bouts before drawing with Pernell Whitaker and losing his first against Frankie Randall by split decision. But the official record of Marciano stood until Floyd tied it with his farewell 2015 victory over Andre Berto and surpassed it in 2017 with a comeback win over Conor McGregor in a sanctioned boxing match. There is still no official word about Menayothin's 54-0 record as the new standard though statistically and quantifiably it is certainly higher than Floyd's. But some media quarters and fans have as before took the occasion as opportunity to spite once again Floyd and his claim to being TBE or the best ever fighter, his version of Muhammad Ali's well justified The Greatest ever. The World Boxing Network and even The Ring Magazine for example emphasized Menayothin's current 54-0 mark in their reportage of the Thai's recent ring victory. Though their stories of Menayothin win over Khoncko occupied not much space and are not prominently placed, still many fans took the opportunity as a field day in the comment sections to bash Floyd by citing Menayothin's ring success record. Never mentioned in the report and the posts was the fact that all of those 54 fights and wins by Menayothin have been held in Thailand. In fact the fight venue of his latest title defense, Chonburi, was also where he won the championship back in 2014 from Mexican Oswaldo Novoa. Menayothin, as most Thai world champions fight exclusively in the relative safety and comfort of their home country. But of course, that could be said also of Floyd, Jr.who fought exclusively in the USA, particularly in his adopted city of Las Vegas where he waged and won his most important fights, including against still active archrival Manny Pacquiao. So that cancels this issue. Until of course Golden Boy Promotions which has signed Menayothin to a contract, manage to lure him away from Thailand. And Floyd makes good his promise to fight in actual boxing bout away from the USA. He has had one in Japan against another MMA artist Tenshin Nasukawa but not recognized as an official regular boxing match. Let us look thoroughly and deeply into their records and compare. Menayothin has had 54 professional fights and as many wins but only 14 of those have been world title bouts in the minimumweight division covering a period of nearly five years. This means the Thai has been fighting at world level in just that length of time. Floyd has had 50 professional bouts and as many wins but 28 of those have been for the world titles in five weight divisions, from super featherweight through the super welterweight classes covering a period of 15 years, 1998-2017, to exclude the four years of his retirements. From that point of comparison, it will be nearly impossible to accept that Menayothin's 54-0 record as the new gold standard in pro boxing. In fact, Menayothin's record still paled in comparison to Lopez's 51-0-1 log that included 25 world title fights in two weight classes, the minimumweight and light flyweight in a period covering 11 years, 1990-2001. The Wiki has this to say about him: Born July 25, 1966, Ricardo "El Finito" Lopez Nava is a retired Mexican professional boxer. As a professional, he defended the Lineal and WBC Strawweight Championship a record 21 times. He also won the WBA and WBO Championships in the same weight class. L?pez later won the IBF Light Flyweight Championship and defended it twice before retiring. He is one of just fifteen world boxing champions to retire without a loss. Menayothin's 14 title defense at minimumweight still fall short of Lopez's 21. In fact, little known Samson Dutch Boy/Toyota Gym holds the record of most title defense by a Thai "world" champion at 28 when he was still super flyweight titlist with the fringe World Boxing Federation or WBF back in the late 90s. He retired undefeated with 41-0 record fighting his entire boxing career in Thailand. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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