{"id":433172,"date":"2026-01-23T22:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433172\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:50:09","slug":"undefeated-us-star-says-hes-the-man-to-beat-naoya-inoue-im-here-to-take-that-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433172\/","title":{"rendered":"Undefeated US star says he’s the man to beat Naoya Inoue: “I’m here to take that fight”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naoya Inoue<\/a> has been called out by an unbeaten American contender, who happens to be gearing up for his first world title challenge at 126lbs.<\/p>\n

The Japanese sensation comes off a dominant unanimous decision victory over David Picasso<\/a>, successfully defending his undisputed super-bantamweight crown last month.<\/p>\n

Appearing on that card in Saudi Arabia, too, was Junto Nakatani, who jumped up to 122lbs and outpointed Sebastian Hernandez in a fiercely contested non-title fight.<\/p>\n

As a result, it appears that the two pound-for-pound stars are now set to collide at the Tokyo Dome<\/a>, Japan, in May, with Inoue putting his four major belts on the line.<\/p>\n

Despite the enormous intrigue surrounding their matchup, Inoue \u2013 a two-division undisputed champion \u2013 will likely be made a sizable favourite against his fellow unbeaten countryman, who has claimed world titles in three separate weight classes.<\/p>\n

Should he defeat Nakatani, then \u2018The Monster\u2019 is likely to move up to featherweight in a bid to become a five-division world champion.<\/p>\n

One fighter who would be eager to present him with that opportunity is Bruce Carrington, who must first claim the vacant WBC title on January 31.<\/p>\n

Featuring on the undercard of Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson at Madison Square Garden in New York, the 28-year-old will look to cement himself at 126lbs with a victory over Carlos Castro.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Ring Magazine, though, \u2018Shu Shu\u2019 Carrington admitted that he is nevertheless keeping one eye on a potential showdown with Inoue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been calling this dude out since, I would say, 2023, before he got knocked down [by Luis Nery and Ramon Cardenas].<\/p>\n

\u201cI see some of the things that fall right into my style. And, again, it\u2019s also a big payday. He\u2019s got the Nakatani fight that might be coming up, so that\u2019s going to be a huge obstacle for him to get past.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if he does do that, and then moves up to featherweight, I am here to take the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Ball, Rafeal Espinoza and Angelo Leo are the current featherweight world champions, all of them representing viable options for Inoue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue has been called out by an unbeaten American contender, who happens to be gearing up for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-433172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}