No wonder Japanese superstar, reigning pound-for-pound king Naoya Inoue (in the opinion of some) likes fighting at home. And no wonder the promoters who put on Inoue’s “Monster” shows want him to fight in his homeland.
A Sellout in 10 Minutes
As reported by both UK Boxing News and Yahoo! Sports in Japan, Inoue’s upcoming September 14 fight with Murodjon Akhmadaliev sold out in just 10 minutes; Inoue’s army of fans snapped up the 17,000 tickets.
Some people – Eddie Hearn for one – see the fight with “MJ,” that will see unified super-bantamweight king Inoue defend his four belts against his WBA mandatory challenger, as the toughest so far in his career. But as his stardom has grown and grown, Inoue, 30-0(27) has shown he is more than capable of selling out big arenas no matter who his opponent is.
Inoue, though, continues to fight the best, to fight to further secure his greatness. Next up, maybe (and providing the skilled and dangerous Akhmadaliev, 14-1(11) doesn’t upset Inoue next month), it will be a massive super-fight between Inoue and Junto Nakatani; this will perhaps go on to become the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history. Who knows how many tickets that fight would shift, and how quickly they would be gobbled up!
The Resale Ticket Problem
However, it’s now been reported how, in a greedy and unethical move the type we have unfortunately grown accustomed to witnessing these days, numerous online ticket resale organisations are charging a whopping 13 times the face value for tickets for the Inoue-Akhmadaliev fight (originally sold for 10,000 yen, which is around $67 or $50, and are now going for 130,000 yen, which is approx $882 or £653).
And, as desperate as they are to see their hero in action, plenty of Inoue fans are paying this kind of huge fee. Possible legal action by promoter Hideyuki Ohashi may follow, but resales are technically within the law, so it’s tough to put a stop to them.
Inoue, of course, has zero control over how much his fans have to fork out for a ticket to see him fight. Still, the future Hall of Famer is sure to not be happy at what has gone on, what is going in, and what may well continue to go on regarding the vast amounts of profit unscrupulous people are pulling in from his bouts.