Boxing
NPC’s Verdict: Inoue beats Nery and does it sensitively
WHEN a humiliated Luis Nery tried to contact Naoya Inoue after their super bantamweight title fight in Tokyo today (May 6), he did so to congratulate him or apologize, yet he was greeted as if his face, the face behind which Inoue happily punished five and a half rounds, something Inoue had never seen before.
In fact, a cursory glance over her shoulder was all Inoue gave Nery at that moment, preferring to garner praise from his friends and corners who surrounded him, celebrating his latest victory. Meanwhile, the contemptuous Nery, feeling that he was not wanted, left them to their own devices and returned to the opposite corner, his face in disarray and his tail between his legs.
As for why Inoue chose to react this way, one can only speculate. Perhaps these were pre-fight comments. (“Overrated, overconfident and ordinary” is how Nery previously described Inoue). This could have been a story. Maybe it was a relief.
There certainly didn’t seem to be any love lost between Inoue and Nery, though, with their last trip to Japan coming six years after he got Shinsuke Yamanaka in trouble not once, but twice (failing a drug test in 2017 ; then an inability to gain weight in 2018) and was subsequently banned by the Japanese Boxing Commission and was never allowed to fight in Japan again. Suffice it to say that although this ban was recently lifted, Nery’s previous behavior did not please Inoue, Yamanaka’s compatriot, or the 55,000 fans in the Tokyo Dome; the crowd is usually so inconspicuous, and yet this evening they settle for booing Nery before the opening bell.
Inoue and Nery (Photo: Naoki Fukuda)
This in many ways set the tone for what was to come. This also made what happened in the first round even more shocking, both for Inoue and those who expected Inoue to exact revenge on Yamanaka. At no point in the crafting of this preferred narrative did anyone expect that Nery, the designated fall and piñata guy, would swing his left hand and grab the tip of Inoue’s chin a minute and a half into today’s fight, leaving him on the canvas for the first time in his pro wrestling career made up of 27 fights. And yet that’s exactly what happened. Inoue, strengthened and for good reason, loaded with everything early on, only to discover that Nery (35-2 (27)) was not only elated to throw with him, but had at least the power in those punches Inoue had to respect.
The opening blow hurt him too. Inoue was by no means a knockdown or a fluke. He was clearly stunned by Nery’s first left hand and therefore made every second of referee Michael Griffin count, not getting up until he was sure his legs would make the process easier.
When he realized he did, Inoue stood up, at which point Nery, sensing his opportunity, cornered him and fired several more shots, throwing everything he could imagine and muster at Inoue. It was the kind of storm Inoue would no doubt have expected, but it didn’t last particularly long. In fact, at the end of the round, it was Inoue who bent Nery’s head with a right uppercut. It was also Inoue, a four-weight champion, who shook her shoulders for a moment and smiled through her rubber shield.
Inoue measures Nery (PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images)
Maybe he knew. Perhaps he knew that the influence of that left hand of Nery was low rather than long-lasting, and perhaps he knew that its greater influence – in terms of impact on the fight – only meant greater punishment for its architect, Luis Nery. This would perhaps explain why Inoue started the second round with such confidence and vigor, and why he seemed so eager to even the score, which of course he did, soon beating Nery with a counter left hook as he stepped forward, legs straight.
Already, despite falling in the first round, Inoue managed to even things out and get the fight back on track, and any mismatches were only short-lived. Suddenly now, while less than twenty years ago fans in the Tokyo Dome were wondering whether they would soon witness one of the biggest events of the year, a familiar sense of inevitability once again enveloped the whole affair. Not unlike Inoue’s previous fights, in the second round he somehow responded to a knockdown with one of his own, and within minutes you forgot the first one even happened.
These feelings were felt not only by the fans, but also by Nery, whose frustration grew in the third and fourth rounds before the mission became one of the kamikazes in the fifth. It was in this fifth round that the Mexican southerner began to prowl forward aimlessly and with a reckless abandon that showed less desperation than a man who wanted his misery to be put to rest; or at best, hasten the ending of the story so as not to experience the pain of what will happen in each of the three acts.
Now stiffened by every shot, the 29-year-old Nery was dropped for the second time in the fight by a left hook from Inoue with 30 seconds left in round five. Then he pulled himself to his feet, but reluctantly, timidly, and with all the energy of a teenager lying in bed on a Monday morning. “Oh, if I must,” his eyes and body seemed to say, because he certainly knew, as we all knew, what would happen in the next round.
Inoue approaches (YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images)
However, if you thought that Inoue, after discovering his man was hurt, would just run across the ring and finish the job, you were wrong. Instead, deciding that the best way to handle him would be shock, ignorance, and defenselessness, Inoue allowed Nery his last fight on the sixth kick, only to then respond to his attacks by cutting Nery to pieces with a series of right rights hands, the last of which snapped Nery’s head back and caused his body to wither and fall to the floor. The fall was so dramatic and the blow was so devastating that the referee saw no reason to count at all, stopping the fight after one minute and 22 seconds of the sixth round.
Just like that, it was over. Inoue, 31, has now claimed his 27th straight professional victory, with 24 of those victories coming after the break, while Nery, an apologetic heel, has never felt more alien and alone. In some respects, you could argue that tonight he received the worst version of Inoue in terms of treatment. As you can see, it wasn’t Naoya Inoue, who breaks the hearts and faces of his opponents with fierce compassion and then thanks them for coming. Instead, she was a meaner Inoue, a more ruthless Inoue, and a more merciless Inoue. That was the monstrous Inoue. Disrespect Inoue. The scariest version yet.
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