Naoya Inoue believes his busy schedule this year has been crucial in building momentum ahead of a potential mega fight with Junto Nakatani in 2026.
The undisputed junior featherweight world champion and one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world is widely expected to defend his titles against Mexican challenger Alan Picasso on December 27 at the Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. Inoue’s Japanese opponent, Nakatani, will face Sebastian Hernandez in the co-main event of the gala.
Then, if “The Monster” Inoue (31-0, 27 KO) and Nakatani (31-0, 24 KO) remain champions, they will be treated to a polite face-to-face meeting once their 2026 fight is officially announced at the Tokyo Dome.
Too many fights? Naoya Inoue dismisses the issue
Inoue, 32, will defend his junior featherweight title for the seventh time against Picasso, which will be his fourth fight this year. No other men’s world boxing champion can match Inoue’s activity this year, and some wonder if it was too much.
After Ki Ye-Joon’s 4th round knockout, Inoue even admitted that he was “mentally exhausted.” In May, Inoue was dropped by Ramon Cardenas in Round 2, but quickly recovered and stopped Cardenas in Round 8. Inoue’s third fight of the year was a masterful performance as he maintained a relentless pace to pass Murodjon Akhmadaliev by unanimous decision in September.
For Inoue, this year’s schedule was perfect.
“First of all, I like fighting, and secondly, I want to build my career step by step, so I decided to fight four times this year,” he told ESPN.
“It’s very significant and very good for me that I will fight four fights in the year before the fight with Nakatani.”
Inoue, a world champion in four weight classes, was recently named second, behind super middleweight champion Terence Crawford, on ESPN’s list of the top 100 boxing fighters of 2025.
A victory over Nakatani, his Japanese rival who trains in Los Angeles, could vault him to the top spot in the pound-for-pound rankings in a clash that is being hailed as the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
Nakatani, 27, who stands three inches taller at 5-foot-7, has also been busy this year recording stoppage victories against Ryosuke Nishida and David Cuellar Contreras.
“This [fight vs. Nakatani] “It’s going to be a large fight in Japan and it’s going to be a historic, large fight and a lot of people are going to be interested in seeing it not only in Japan,” Inoue told ESPN.
Inoue held the junior flyweight, junior bantamweight, bantamweight and junior featherweight world belts. Despite knockdowns in two of his last five fights (against Cardenas and Luis Nery in May 2024), Inoue believes that junior featherweight is the optimal weight class for him.
“I feel like I’m the best in the junior featherweight division, better than in other weight classes,” Inoue told ESPN.
Picasso (32-0-1, 17 KO) impressively defeated Kyonosuke Kameda by majority decision in July.
“I didn’t look at his last fight, I’ll just focus on winning,” Inoue told ESPN.
Inoue, who confirmed to ESPN that he will move up to featherweight at some point, believes Japanese boxing can become even better than the boom it is currently enjoying. Seven world boxing champions come from Japan in the men’s and women’s sport, as well as Nakatani, who relinquished his world bantamweight titles in September.
“There are a lot of up-and-coming boxers from Japan, a lot of up-and-coming talented fighters, so I believe that Japanese boxing will get better and better,” Inoue told ESPN.
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