Naoya Inoue drops all belts and looks set to become a four-weight champion
Naoya Inoue has confirmed that he will drop his four bantamweight world titles and move up to super bantam to try to become the four-weight world champion.
The pound star became the first undisputed champion in the 118 lb division in 50 years when he stopped WBO belt holder Paul Butler in the 11th round of the bout last month.
Inoue had to be patient with the British, who has adopted a safe game plan first and given very little offense. He got there, think, in the eleventh round. The stop further cemented his status as the all-time great in production.
Butler, who was tolerant of defeat, continued to praise Inoue.
I’m a world champion, but he’s a great guy. He is the Canelo of bantamweights. He is very good at what he does. In my opinion, it’s hard when you have a pound-for-pound great who’s going to be one of the all-time greats.
People had high expectations that ‘The Monster’ would move up to 1122lbs after the win over Butler, with matches against team champions Stephen Fulton and Murjdon Akhmadaliev being speculated by fans.
The WBO awarded Inoue the “super champion” title, meaning he would automatically become a mandatory challenger to Fulton’s WBO title.
However, a fight with the American boxer is unlikely to come next, as it was announced this week that he will rematch Brandon Figueroa for the WBC interim title in featherweight on February 25.
Furthermore, Inoue was promoted by Top Rank, who had no super bantamweight champions in their cage. Fulton was promoted by PBC, while Akhmadaliev was associated with Matchroom.
Inoue’s commercial status in his native Japan and the ability to pay well to one of two belt holders in his career will hopefully prove enough to overcome advertising and broadcast barriers, as he He began to pursue further heritage-defining challenges.