Japan's Boxing Mix and Match - Naoya Inoue: Right Number, Wrong Foes, Wrong Sequence
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 08 Mar 2025
After successively feasting on a has-been, TJ Doheny, and a virtual non-entity, Ye Joon Kim, in the last nine months of 2024, Naoya Inoue has been expected to make up this year with at least two super fights befitting his status as undisputed world champion and among the pound-for-pound best.
Former unified titlist and current WBA interim super bantamweight champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev has also been expecting that he would be one, and the FIRST, to be named as Inoue's opponent, having been mandatory challenger since most of last year.
Inoue indeed announced that he will be fighting at least twice this year, but the first of those would be against top-rated Mexican contender Alan Picasso in his return to the US ring since 2021. There was no mention of who his next fight would be against, so MJ is once again left hanging. Picasso, however, recently withdrew from the projected bout, saying he is not ready.
In the aftermath of Picasso's withdrawal, the Inoue camp came out with another announcement: Naoya will be fighting number two-rated Mexican contender Ramon Cardenas in June in Las Vegas and then Akhmadaliev in September in Japan.
It is the right number of projected fights for Inoue this 2025—at least two fights.
But one of the opponents, as well as the sequence, are not right. Cardenas is said to be another undeserving challenger who has fought mostly in Mexico and fattened his record against domestic opposition.
Pundits are saying American paying fans are not predisposed to seeing another Michael Dasmarinas massacre. They are almost insisting that Inoue should first take on Akhmadaliev in the US, where fans are familiar with both fighters, and hence there is a high possibility that the fight would be viewed live by a huge audience and massively followed on other media platforms, including the internet.
This makes a lot of sense, given that a fight versus Gervonta "Tank" Davis is a "pie in the sky" thing. There's also no indication that Naoya is ready to challenge his former unified super bantamweight title victim, Stephen Fulton, for his newly won WBC featherweight belt.
If Inoue wins over Akhmadaliev, the "Monster" then could arrange back in Japan the biggest all-Japanese world title fight against WBC bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani sometime between September and December, which boxing experts say would be a most fitting farewell bout for Naoya before he invades the featherweight division.
Ideally, what the pundits are saying and what many fans really want to see should draw gravitas in the decision-making in the Inoue camp, which includes his American co-promoter, Bob Arum.
But with their ward holding all the belts and Japanese promoters having ever growing stronger clout with the boxing sanctioning bodies, including who their champion fights, when, and where, they can always go on with this mix-and-match game to their advantage.
It does not help that they also have Bob Arum, who is an old hand in that game.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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