Big fights at the lower weights have suddenly become fashionable. The hugely successful run of Nicaraguan superstar Roman ?Chocolatito? Gonzalez was captured in its latter stages by HBO, as part of the supporting cast to Gennady Golovkin?s fights. For better or for worse this included Gonzalez?s most recent two bouts, which also happened to be his first two defeats, both at the deadly fists of Thailand?s Wisaksil Wangek (or Srisaket Sor Rungvisai as he is known in most quarters).
In the post-Gonzalez climate, step forward Naoya Inoue, a 24-year-old destroyer from Yokohama who punches extremely hard. You can run and try to hide, you can even put your gloves up and try to block him but this guy will just literally punch through you. American television got a sniff of Naoya in his last-but-one bout when he arrived on the West Coast to batter Antonio Nieves to defeat. Inoue showed calmness, poise and shot variation, mixed with chilling punch power, to break down and stop Nieves in six one-sided rounds. He made the seventh and final defence of his WBO super-flyweight crown in December, 2017 when Yoann Bayeux was smashed into oblivion in the third round.
Inoue has since moved up to bantamweight and is expected to face Jamie McDonnell for the Doncaster man?s WBA ?world? title at some point in May in Japan. Prior to defeating Omar Narvaez for the WBO super-fly belt, Inoue had already won a world title at light-flyweight and completely surpassed the flyweight division altogether. He is growing fast and may soon be competing as high as featherweight if this surge continues.
