Pound-for-pound star discusses what he has left to achieve.
Naoya Inoue is one of the best fighters in all of boxing. The Japanese pound-for-pound star is a lock for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and he is already widely considered the best fighter in the history of his country.
Currently, there is only one other fighter who could rival him for the title of the best active fighter from Japan, and that is Junto Nakatani.
Inoue and Nakatani will throw hands at the Tokyo Dome on the 2nd of May in what is undoubtedly the largest all-Japanese spectacle in pugilistic history.
As both men hold places in the pound-for-pound top ten, a win for either would vault them up the rankings. However, if the winner is Inoue, it would strengthen the claim that “The Monster” is indeed the best fighter on the planet.
But if he does pull off such a fantastic victory, talk will immediately turn to what he will do next, and that is something Inoue has touched on in a new TikTok live.
“I think featherweight will be my final challenge. After the Nakatani fight and one other fight I’ve wanted to do, my last challenge will be in featherweight”, Inoue stated.
“I’m not going to move up right away, so I’d like to decide [a fight] with the [featherweight] champion at that time”, he concluded.
Inoue is the current undisputed super-bantamweight champion, having also been undisputed at bantamweight and champion at both super-strawweight and super-flyweight.
Should he go up to featherweight and collect all the marbles there, too, he would be in rarefied air as only the third fighter in history (after Henry Armstrong and Terence Crawford) to be a three-weight undisputed champion.
Significant challenges lie ahead for Inoue at featherweight. The size of the 6’1″ Rafael Espinoza would be a mountain to climb, the similar size and high output of Brandon Figueroa would also make for rough terrain to traverse, the slickness and power of Bruce Carrington would put anyone on edge, and the pressure of Angelo Leo could cause many tough eggs to crack.
As for that “other fight” Inoue mentioned wanting to do, fans have theorised that it might just be Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodríguez, the two-weight world champion and fellow pound-for-pound force who currently holds three belts at super-flyweight and is rumoured for a bantamweight title challenge.
If Inoue were to beat Rodríguez and clean up at featherweight, we are looking at one of the very greatest to ever don a pair of boxing gloves.
While these are lofty orders even for the brilliant Inoue, he has already proven to possess a different type of greatness, a type that can’t be matched by even terrific fighters.
And a fighter like that, he can do just about anything he sets his mind to.
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