How high can Japanese superstar, the history-making Naoya Inoue, go – as in how far up the weights can “The Monster” go? It seems in this age, the collecting of belts in as many weight divisions as possible is a measure of a fighter’s greatness. Inoue, who has ruled at three weights – light-flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight; Inoue, with this week’s commanding win over Paul Butler becoming the first 118 pounder to hold all major titles in the four-belt era – is now looking to add more trophies in the form of belts to his cabinet.
As superb, some have said flawless as he has now looked in 24 pro fights, 21 of them KO wins, Inoue does look like a fighter who will one day be remembered as a modern great at the very least, maybe as an all-time great. Inoue really has shown he can do it all: punch (like nobody else today, to both head and body, with his left hand, with his right hand), take a punch, go the distance if necessary, box with high intelligence, fight on the front foot as well as the back foot.
Yes, as the saying goes, Inoue has ticked ALL the boxes.
So can anyone give Inoue a test? Thus far, only fellow future Hall of Famer Nonito Donaire has managed to push “The Monster” into something akin to a scary fight for the 29 year old pound-for-pounder, this in their first fight, back in November of 2019. Since then, Inoue, who battled through the pain of a busted orbital bone in the first Donaire fight, has wiped out all in his path, including Donaire in a rematch.
Now, having cleaned out the bantamweight division with the Butler KO, Inoue will go up to the 122 division, and maybe even higher. Right now, there are two unified champions at 122 pounds, in Stephen Fulton and Murodjon Akhmadaliev. Both match-ups would prove interesting, especially one with mile-a-minute puncher Fulton. Yet as good as Inoue is, he would be expected to defeat either man. It might be, as some have been suggesting for some time, that Inoue will have to tackle much larger men than himself if his considerable skills and abilities are to be really, truly tested. Might Inoue go as high as featherweight before he’s done? At 5’5,” the 126 division might be as high as Inoue could realistically be expected to go. Having said that, Inoue has carried his speed AND power up with him from light-flyweight to bantamweight, this with no apparent problems.
Inoue could well be a fighter who exits the sport with an unbeaten record, without ever having had to dig as deep as even he doesn’t know he can dig. It’s a shame this magnificent fighter wasn’t around when greats like Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales were plying their trade at 122 pounds. Imagine, if you can, the beautiful brutality those two match-ups would have brought!
As it is now, it’s up to Fulton, Akhmadaliev, and maybe today’s best featherweights to bring out the absolute greatness in Naoya Inoue.