Boxing champion who beat Scottish great Walter McGowan. An appreciation
CHARTCHAI Chinoi, who has died aged 75, was a boxer and three-times world flyweight champion who will always be remembered in Scotland as the man who beat the Scottish flyweight great Walter McGowan not just once but twice - no mean achievement given McGowan's indisputable greatness as a Caledonian boxing champion.
A veteran who participated in no fewer than 13 world title bouts, Chinoi made his debut in December 1959 in Bangkok with a low-key points win over the obscure Pathum Thani.
An accomplished technician in the ring, Chinoi's slashing jabs and hooks more often than not inflicted cuts on his rivals which forced referees to halt fights in his favour.
His innate strength also meant he could absorb his opponents' best punches and roar back to win.
However, when Chinoi lured Walter McGowan to his Bangkok home patch in 1966, he was not widely known back in Scotland. Top Scottish coach John McDermott still rates McGowan as being technically the best Scottish flyweight boxer he ever saw, but for his paper thin skin which made him very vulnerable to cuts.
McGowan also knew Chinoi had a good pedigree but the money made it worth going to Bangkok to defend his title as WBC flyweight champion. McGowan told me in an interview: "We also got to meet the King of Thailand but we had to decline the lavish hospitality we were offered.
"I was surprised by Chinoi's strength and he lived up to his reputation for slashing open opponent's faces because, although I held my own for eight rounds, in round nine he cut open my nose so badly, with blood everywhere, that the fight was halted and I lost the title that I'd won six months earlier in London against Salvatore Burruni."
Unfortunately, when Chinoi and McGowan met again at Wembley in a September 1967 rematch, the script was the same with McGowan boxing well but losing when Chinoi imposed another bloody cut on the Scot's left eye in round seven.
Such mayhem was par for the course with Chinoi - witness his subsequent world title fight with rock-hard Mexican Efren Torres in Mexico city in 1968. Up until the 13th round, Torres had given Chinoi as good as he got until a rapier-like hook cut open Torres's left optic, once again forcing a stoppage win for Chinoi.
Torres subsequently defeated Chinoi to take his world crown in Mexico City, although Chinoi had the final say when he grabbed back his world eight-stone title by beating Torres in a return bout by unanimous points decision .
Back-to-back defeats by Filipino Eriobito Salavarria and Japan's Masao Oba saw Chinoi become an ex-champion once more. But the death of Oba in a car accident saw the Thailander contest two title fights with Switzerland's Fritz Chervet, with Chinoi emerging victorious on both occasions.
That was Chinoi's swan song but it was the scales, not opponents in the ring, that finally made him an ex-world champion for the final time. In October 1974 in Yokohama, Japan, he lost the title because he was three pounds overweight and it was little surprise when his opponent Japan's Susummu Hanagata, kayoed the Thailander in the sixth round.
Chinoi had a record of 61 wins,18 losses and three draws in an 82-bout paid career.
BRIAN DONALD
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