I can’t wait forever
If Naoya won’t fight him, WBO champ ready to take on heavier opponents
As much as he wants to face WBA and IBF champion Naoya Inoue in a title unification bout, WBO bantamweight titlist John Riel Casimero knows that playing the waiting game also has its limits.
That is why Casimero, coming off a dominating win over Duke Micah last Sunday in the United States, already has plans of moving up to super bantamweight and challenging WBC holder Luis Nery in the event a fight with Inoue doesn’t push through.
Nery scored a unanimous decision win over fellow Mexican Aaron Alameda to claim the vacant belt. Both Casimero and Nery were in the undercard of Jermall Charlo’s WBC middleweight title victory opposite Sergiy Derevyanchenko in Uncasville, Connecticut.
While also making mention of 39-year-old Cuban Guillermo Rigodeaux, the WBA bantamweight champion, Casimero is leaning more toward Nery as his Plan B.
“Kung ayaw talaga ni Naoya Inoue lumaban sa akin, aakyat ako kay Luis Nery para magiging four division tayo,” Casimero said during yesterday’s online session of the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum.
(If Naoya Inoue doesn’t want to face me, I’ll move up and face Luis Nery so I can become a four-division champion.)
Casimero once again called out Inoue shortly after his third round TKO of Micah with profanities that ended with the Filipino describing the WBA and IBF champion as a “Japanese turtle.”
The flamboyant 30-year-old said the chance of owning all three belts is something he wants to pursue, which is why Casimero continues to put Inoue on notice.
Both fighters were supposed to slug it out last April 25 but the fight got postponed due to COVID19. Inoue eventually selected Jason Moloney as his next opponent for Oct. 31 in
Las Vegas.
“Pangarap ko talaga unification pero kung takbo siya, wala na tayo magagawa diyan (May dream is to have a unification fight, but if he continues to run away then I have no choice),” said Casimero.
“Sabi ko sa kanila walang monster na takot, hindi monster yan. That’s a Japanese turtle, not a monster (I told them that there’s not a monster that is scared. That’s a Japanese turtle),” he added.
Casimero is set to return to his hometown of Ormoc in the second week of October after spending close to a year in the US while waiting on what’s next on the horizon.