It is possible that Naoya Inoue is the very best boxer in the world right now. He is certainly the best boxer you have never heard of or seen fight.
He won his first world title 10 years ago, has added world titles at three different weights, and has stopped or knocked out 24 of the 27 men he has met in professional fights.
On Tuesday morning in Japan, Inoue will have his 23rd world title fight when he defends his super-bantamweight titles against the tough Irish-Australian, TJ Doheny. It will be over by about round six.
Inoue has knocked out 20 of the 22 men he has met in world title fights since winning his first championship back in 2014. He started at just 108lb and is now a stone heavier at 122 pounds. He has held the light-fly, super-fly, bantam and now the super-bantam world titles. Had he not jumped the flyweight division, it would be five weights and he would have been untouchable at all those weights. In boxing history, great fighters have moved across the weight divisions, but they have never ruled like Inoue.
Last year, he met American Stephen Fulton in a move to super-bantamweight. At the time, Fulton was 21 wins without defeat, seasoned, the world champion at the weight, real quality, hard and he really tried; he was beaten methodically, made to suffer, broken and then dropped and stopped in the eighth round. It was stunning.
In Inoue’s last fight in May, he had a real test on paper, but it finished in the sixth when he stopped Luis Nery in front of 40,000 at the Tokyo Dome. The numbers in the Dome also ruined the myth that he was not an attraction. The truth is that Inoue has been a one-man revolution in Japanese boxing and now the business is thriving.
Bob Arum, Inoue’s promoter, has been talking about the boxer for a long time and praising him and one of his standard lines is: “He’s the best I’ve ever seen.” Arum is not kidding, and he grabs your arm to emphasise the statement.
Inoue is now 31, unbeaten in a total of 27 fights, with just three of his fights going the full distance. He has beaten absolutely everybody of note in the weight divisions that he has ruled. He has knocked out unbeaten men, toyed with proven world champions, taken care of previously avoided fighters, and he has done it with both hands – leaving them stunned and confused on the canvas again and again.
There is often a look of shock on the faces of the good men that Inoue drops; they can go early, or they can struggle, bite down on their gumshields and survive a few rounds. They have tried to run, hide, stand toe-to-toe, but Inoue just takes control and finds the cleanest and most clinical of punches to send them all tumbling.
On Tuesday, it will be Doheny’s chance to stop Inoue’s rise. Doheny was born in Ireland but has lived in Australia; he held the IBF super-bantamweight title in 2019, has lost four of his 30 fights and has never been stopped. At 37 he is still a hard man to beat easily; Inoue, unfortunately for Doheny, is good at making history and hurting men.
