By Norm Frauenheim –
Naoya Inoue, tireless and talented, emerges from a victory that was mostly predictable, yet still notable for what it means to a brilliant career moving into another chapter.
An even bigger stage.
Forget the fight, which ended with TJ Doheny limping across the canvas in the seventh round like an old man in need of a walker after Inoue’s succession of lethal body blows apparently damaged a sciatic nerve in the Irishman’s lower back Tuesday in Tokyo.
Inoue looked as if he was disappointed at a performance that didn’t meet expectations he has created for himself. Sure enough, disappointment was the word used to describe the fight in several reports. He wanted more. Inoue always wants more. He’s still a work in progress, said the fighter with a spectacular skillset complemented by an over achiever’s energy and work ethic.
Progress is the promise in what was the real news to come from Inoue’s one-sided victory in another junior-featherweight title defense. Post-fight, Inoue promoter Bob Arum offered a business plan, including a Christmas Eve fight in Tokyo, a return to the United States in Vegas in perhaps April and a return to Japan for a biggie against Junto Nakatani, who for now looks to be Inoue’s biggest threat.
The planned return to the US is the biggest news. Maybe the most surprising, too. Inoue hasn’t fought in the US since June, 2021, a stoppage of Michael Dasmarinas. It was the second of only two US appearances, the first a seventh-round stoppage of Jason Moloney, also in Vegas at the MGM Grand in Oct, 2020. Since, then he has stayed in Japan, going 7-0.
The word was that Japan’s rising son would stay at home. The money, especially for a fighter in a lighter weight class, was bigger than he could get in the US. There was no reason to travel. Over the last three-plus years, however, his celebrity has gone international. It’s not Shohei Ohtani big. It’s not even Manny Pacquiao big. But it’s growing with evidence that there’s potential for more.
The Inoue expected to fight in Vegas in April will be a lot better-known to US fans than the one who fought there years ago. This time, it’s a step to make Inoue a worldwide celebrity and a fighter in a small weight class with a skillset dynamic enough to keep him at the top of the pound-for-pound debate for a while.
Call it an initial move toward a genuine legacy, rare in Japanese boxing. Plans, of course, are as vulnerable as boxing’s proverbial glass chin. They get broken all the time. But Top Rank’s Bob is the right promoter for the job. He was a key to turning Tyson Fury into an international celebrity when he brought him to Vegas, where he fought, lived and sang for a couple of years. Arum has also had more success with small fighters than perhaps anybody in the business. He turned junior-flyweight Michael Carbajal into a star in the 1990s.
In Inoue, however, there’s just much more potential. He’s a former 108-pound champion who has gone on to four titles at four weights, including two undisputed — putting him alongside Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk in the history of boxing’s four-belt era. It looks as if his stardom is about to spread, from Asia to America.
The first step in Arum’s plan appears to be a mandatory defense against unbeaten Australian Sam Goodman. Then, there’s Vegas, perhaps against Murodjon Akhmadaliev, an Uzbekistan fighter who many believe looms as a tougher test than Goodman. However, Akhmadaliev lost to Marlon Tapales, whom Inoue stopped in a 10th-round knockout last December. Tapales, a Filipino southpaw, is coming back Saturday in Cambodia against Saurabh Kumar.
At this stage of the plan, all options lead to Nakatani in a fight that has the potential to be the biggest in Japanese history. The 26-year-old Nakatani, an unbeaten bantamweight champion, is younger than the 31-year-old Inoue. He’s also bigger. He’s three-inches taller. All of the talk is about Inoue-Nakatani. But Inoue is talking about his own brother, Takuma, a once-beaten bantamweight champion.
In post-fight interviews Tuesday, Inoue told Japanese media that Nakatani has to fight his brother first. Nakatani might get that chance on either Christmas Eve or in Vegas in April. Nakatani in a co-main event with Inoue on either card or both makes sense. Dollars, too
Can Inoue beat Nakatani? Hard to say. But the guess here: Yes. He beat Nonito Donaire. If he can beat Donaire, he beats Nakatani.
If he does, a dream fight awaits. Even now, there’s talk about Jesse Rodriguez versus Inoue, Bam versus Monster. Rodriguez was asked about it last June after he scored two knockdowns and got up for one in a dramatic stoppage of an accomplished Juan Francisco Estrada in Phoenix.
Rodriguez , the World Boxing Council’s 115-pound champion, is expected to fight Estrada again in a contracted rematch. If — as expected — he beats Estrada again, he hopes to unify the title against Fernando Martinez, an unbeaten Argentine, who has two of the belts after a decision over Kazuto Ioka in Tokyo on July 7.
Then Inoue? Only if everything works out in a a plan that a could create a stage as big as any.
