Inoue vs. Picasso Tops Dec. 27 Riyadh Card; Nakatani Co-Features

Naoya Inoue is going to Saudi because he gets paid heavy with no real danger attached. Alan Picasso is his latest opponent this Saturday, live on DAZN PPV. Unbeaten on paper, untested where it matters. They’ll sell it as an “opportunity,” but it reads like another workload assignment before anything serious in 2026.

The real danger isn’t the opponent. It’s drift. You start treating a fight like it’s light work, that’s when someone bangs you clean. Picasso doesn’t carry frightening power, but he’s young, loose, and fearless enough to throw without overthinking. Plenty of champions got sparked by lads like that because they stopped taking them serious.

And Picasso does have one exploitable tool: a long jab. Inoue sometimes falls in behind his power entries. If he lunges without feints or angles, he gives Picasso his only real moment — a counter on the way in. It won’t flip the result, but it can turn the opening rounds into a bit of a scrappy fight.

---

Can Picasso Turn This Into Delays Instead of Damage?

Picasso’s path isn’t victory. It’s sabotage. He can spoil tempo, slow the feet, force resets, and push Inoue into two- and three-phase exchanges instead of neat, surgical sequences. If he turns this into a scruffy, stubborn fight, that’s success on his terms. It won’t advance him, but it can make Inoue burn time instead of making statements.

Inoue likes controlled geometry. Picasso likes interruption. One wants patterns. The other wants noise. The fight hinges on how long Picasso can drag Inoue away from his preferred rhythm.

---

What This Assignment Really Exposes About Inoue’s Schedule

Even if Inoue dominates — and he should — this fight exposes something else: stagnation. Another winter, another maintenance job, while dangerous men above him keep moving.

If Picasso survives longer than expected, the narrative shifts quickly. Not “Inoue is slipping,” but “Inoue is wasting cycles.” He risks opening 2026 explaining why he’s still cleaning up mandatories instead of chasing live threats.

If this goes wrong at all, it won’t be through defeat. It’ll be through lost momentum, lost urgency, and rivals seizing the storyline of drift.

---

Nakatani vs Hernandez on December 27

Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani  is set for May at the Tokyo Dome, but that talk means nothing until they get through their fights on 27 December in Riyadh without getting smashed up.

They’re on the same card, so we’ll see how they get on first. Inoue defends his belts against David Picasso. Nakatani moves into 122 against Sebastian Hernandez Reyes. On paper, both should win. Boxing doesn’t run on paper.

Inoue has boxed three times this year already. Kim fell apart fast in January. Cardenas lasted longer in May but never threatened. Akhmadaliev gave him twelve hard rounds in September, the one night Inoue looked like he had to think instead of dictate. He still won, but it raised the question: is he carrying too much activity into another mandatory? One flat performance against Picasso and the whole Tokyo-Dome narrative stalls.

Nakatani has been violent and efficient at bantamweight. Cuellar lasted three rounds. Nishida got broken up in six. He is a southpaw with range, but moving into 122 against an unbeaten Hernandez brings a different kind of test. It’s not résumé, it’s reaction speed. If Nakatani drifts for two rounds, Hernandez may take more than confidence from it.

---

The risk nobody spells out

Everyone talks as if Inoue-Nakatani is a formality. It isn’t. Inoue is the one with leverage. Nakatani is the one with something to lose. If he looks ordinary in Riyadh, he becomes optional. If he labours, Inoue has zero incentive to risk the biggest domestic fight since Tokyo Dome nostalgia became a sales pitch.

Presuming both win smoothly, then fine: 2026 gets a genuine super-bantamweight fight with two unbeaten operators who actually punch. But the truth is simpler. December decides whether this is a done deal or just talk. One injury, one off night, and the whole thing goes back to fantasy mode.

---

Event details

Date: Saturday, December 27, 2025
Venue: Mohammed Abdo Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Start time: 12 p.m. KSA / 9 a.m. GMT / 4 a.m. ET / 2 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. JST
Main-event ringwalks: 4 p.m. KSA / 1  p.m. GMT / 8 a.m. ET / 5  a.m. PT

---

Fight card (scheduled)

• Naoya Inoue vs Alan Picasso — undisputed super bantamweight

• Willibaldo Garcia vs Kenshiro Teraji — IBF super flyweight title

• Junto Nakatani vs Sebastian Hernandez — super bantamweight

• Taiga Imanaga vs Armando Martinez — lightweight

• Reito Tsutsumi vs Leobardo Quintana — super featherweight