In’ the mood
Naoya extends his record in style
NAOYA Inoue, the only serious rival to Terence Crawford as boxing’s current pound-for-pound boss, turned in another totally exhillerating performance in front of a crowd of just over 43,000 at the Tokyo Dome last Monday.
Defending all four super-bantamweight belts, the former undisputed bantamweight champion survided the first knockdown of his now 27-0 career and really turned on the style against southpaw Luis Nery, a 29-year-old Mexican who entered the ring with a 35-1 record and as a previous holder of the WBC bantamweight and superbantamweight titles.
Nery, a year and a half younger than Inoue (who turned 31 last month), even dropped the champion with a left hook two minutes into the opening round.
Eight
But a super cool Inoue responded by flooring Nery in rounds two and five before dropping him for the third time with a savage right that compelled Montreal referee Michael Griffin to flag the fight off at 1:22 of round six.
It was the 24th inside-thedistance victory for The
Monster and the eighth in succession and after he completed the customary inthe-ring television interview, he was joined by Sam Goodman, the unbeaten Australian who holds the number one position in both the IBF and WBO rankings for the last year or so.
“Most probably I will fight Goodman in September,” said Inoue, to which his manager cum promoter Hideyuki Ohashi responded that the fight would most likely be staged in either Tokyo or Yokohama and that “Naoya will fight twice more this year, in September and again in December.”
Surprise
The three other world title bouts on the night produced action and surprise.
The latter was provided by 27-year-old southpaw Yoshiki Takei, who ended the reign of Jason Moloney as WBO bantamweight title holder with a unanimous and surprisingly clearcut points decision on two scorecards of 116-111 and one of 117-110.
Takei, locally born but now living in Yokohama, brought his record to 9-0 after being taken the distance for the first time in his three year paid career. Moloney, a 33-year-old Aussie who beat a then 18-year-old Michael Conlan in the Commonwealth
Games in New Delhi in 2010
and was knocked out in seven rounds by Inoue in a WBA and IBF bantamweight titles challenge in Las Vegas in October 2020, lost for the third time in 30 paid bouts.
Brother
Naoya Inoue’s younger brother, 28-year-old Takuma, retained his WBA bantamweight title for the second time — but, like his more famous sibling, had to survive a first round knockdown to do so against 32-year-old compatriot Sho Ishida.
The opening round was the only one the younger Inoue lost according to two 118-109 scorecards with the third tally in his favour being 116-111 as he stretched his record to 20-1. Ishida, outpointed by Khalid Yafai in a WBA super-flyweight title bid in Cardiff in October 2017, is now 34-4.
In the final title bout on the show, Seigo Yuri Akui made a successful first defence of his WBA flyweight crown with a unanimous decision win over compatriot Taku Kuwahara.