Connect with us

Boxing

Naoya Inoue continues to perform at a high level – but is there a disturbing problem lurking?

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Boxing

Davies vs Collins & Heaney vs Warburton II Results: Full Fight Recap

Published

on

"Davies vs Collins & Heaney vs Warburton II Results: Full Fight Recap"

World Boxing News provides results and updates as Liam Davies faces Nathaniel Collins in the main event at bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham.

Davies and Collins collide over 12 rounds for the EBU European featherweight title at the top of the Queensberry Promotions card.

Luke McCormack faces Kay Prospere for the vacant British super lightweight title, while Bradley Goldsmith takes on Amir Abubaker for the IBF International middleweight title.

WBN provides results and updates from every bout as they happen.


Results

All times are local BST.

23:11

Gerome Warburton defeated Nathan Heaney for the second time running as the middleweight put an exclamation mark on his first victory.

Heaney walks away from the sport having been an entertainer through a long carer, without reaching the heights of a world title.

22:04

Liam Davies improved to 19-1 after Nathaniel Collins retired at the end of the seventh round due to a cut over his right eye. Collins had also been dropped in the opening round as Davies successfully defended the European featherweight title.

21:22

Bradley Goldsmith improved to 17-1 with a seventh-round stoppage of Amir Abubaker to retain his IBF International middleweight title. Abubaker went down in the fourth and three times in the seventh before the finish at 2:42.

20:10

Lewis Richardson improved to 3-0 with a shutout six-round points victory over Ivan Trofimovich, earning a 60-54 decision.

19:56

Luke McCormack moved to 6-0 and claimed the vacant British super lightweight title with a tenth-round knockout of Kay Prospere, who was counted out after a right uppercut at 1:28.

18:55

Michael Hussain moved to 5-0 with a four-round points victory over Nabil Ahmed, earning a 39-38 decision.

18:11

Nelson Birchall moved to 12-0 with a third-round stoppage of Lewis Morris, who went down before the finish came at 1:12. Lasha Guruli also remained unbeaten at 5-0 after edging Hughie Wilson 77-75 over eight rounds.

17:22

Early action saw John Tom Varey and Reese Lynch claim four-round victories to move to 3-0 and 5-0 respectively.


TV Coverage

DAZN provides full worldwide coverage.

Follow WBN’s live boxing coverage throughout the event.


About the Author

Phil Jay is the Editor-in-Chief of World Boxing News (WBN), a BWAA-acknowledged boxing news website founded in 2010. A veteran boxing reporter with 16 years of experience, he has interviewed world champions, broken international exclusives, and reported ringside from major events. His work is published worldwide through WBN and distributed on platforms including Apple News.

Read Phil Jay’s full bio and latest stories.

Continue Reading

Boxing

Janibek Alimkhanuly Shifts Perspective on Hamzah Sheeraz: A New Dynamic in Boxing

Published

on

"Janibek Alimkhanuly Shifts Perspective on Hamzah Sheeraz: A New Dynamic in Boxing"

Janibek Alimkhanuly spent months trying to get Hamzah Sheeraz into the ring. Now that Sheeraz has vacated his WBO super middleweight title, Janibek is asking fans to stop saying the former champion ran from him. That is generous. It also leaves Janibek with less to say about a fight he wanted badly.

Janibek’s tone has changed since the purse bid. He was eager to fight, said money was not his priority, and publicly pushed Sheeraz to accept. Queensberry then bid $1,001,809 to stage the ordered defense, beating Top Rank’s $820,000 offer. Sheeraz’s 75 percent share would have been roughly $751,000. Days later, he gave up the belt.

That sequence deserves a closer look. Queensberry put a serious number on the fight, so the bid itself cannot be dismissed as proof that nobody valued it. But winning the right to promote a title defense means little to fans when the champion vacates before it happens.

Sheeraz has objected to Janibek receiving a mandatory shot after his failed drug test. He is entitled to explain that position. Fans are equally entitled to ask why the issue reached a purse bid before he surrendered the title. Janibek’s post supplies no answer.

Perhaps Janibek sees no benefit in branding Sheeraz a coward. Doing so would also make the opponent he chased sound less valuable. Calling Sheeraz a great fighter preserves the idea that this was an important contest, even after the belt and the fight slipped away.

The respect between them may be sincere. Janibek still gets no Sheeraz fight, and Sheeraz no longer has to defend his title against Janibek. A friendly photo does not change either result.

Share this article

About the author

Boxing 24/7 Wire

Boxing247.com is an independent boxing news publication covering the sport since 2001. It provides original reporting, fight analysis, schedules, results, and informed coverage of major fighters and events worldwide, backed by more than 25 years of professional boxing journalism.

Continue Reading

Boxing

Virginia Confirms Decision to Erase Prichard Colón Loss from Records

Published

on

Virginia Confirms Decision to Erase Prichard Colón Loss from Records

Virginia has given World Boxing News its final answer on whether Prichard Colón’s last professional defeat can still be challenged, bringing an end to WBN’s long fight to have the result annulled and removed from his record.

WBN has pursued the possibility of changing the controversial disqualification defeat to Terrel Williams, with those efforts continuing following Colón’s death at age 33.

Virginia’s Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation previously explained that a decision can only be overturned if there is proven collusion, a scorecard error, or a regulatory violation that affected the result.

WBN pressed Eric Beidel, Communications & Digital Media Manager for the Department of Professional & Occupational Regulation, on whether any avenue remained to challenge the decision.

“And on that final question … as mentioned before, a decision can only be overturned if there is proven collusion, a scorecard error, or a regulatory violation that affected the results,” Beidel graciously responded after providing WBN with transparent answers throughout the investigation.

“In addition, a complaint about a regulatory violation must be filed within three years of the alleged violation.”

The Colón-Williams fight took place on October 17, 2015, meaning that deadline expired years ago.

Virginia Closes Appeal Route

Virginia’s response also addressed whether the result could instead be challenged through an appeal.

“The Administrative Process Act (APA) does create appeal rights to case decisions, but because DPOR never received a complaint in this instance, there was no case or decision that could be appealed under the APA.”

The deadline for filing a complaint about a regulatory violation has expired, while the absence of an original complaint means there is no case decision available to appeal under the APA.

For WBN, Virginia’s response ends a long fight to have the defeat annulled and removed from Colón’s professional record.

Premier Boxing Champions | PBC on NBC

WBN’s Fight for Prichard Colón

It is no secret that WBN and Prichard were close before the most tragic night of his career ended all contact and left us on the outside for the years leading up to his death.

That never stopped WBN from reporting on Prichard, campaigning for change and hoping lessons from what happened to him could help prevent another fighter and family from enduring the same tragedy.

Virginia’s final response may end WBN’s attempts to have the result changed, but it does not end our commitment to Prichard.

Prichard Colón will not be forgotten.

WBN will continue to keep his name alive whenever and wherever possible with the WBN Boxer Pageand push to ensure his fight for life and everything that happened in its aftermath are never allowed to simply disappear from boxing’s memory.

This investigation ends here, but Prichard’s story does not.


About the Author

Phil Jay is the Editor-in-Chief of World Boxing News (WBN), a BWAA-acknowledged boxing news website founded in 2010. A veteran boxing reporter with 16 years of experience, he has interviewed world champions, broken international exclusives, and reported ringside from major events. His work is published worldwide through WBN and distributed on platforms including Apple News.

Read Phil Jay’s full bio and latest stories.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending