{"id":827730,"date":"2026-07-27T21:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T21:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827730\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T21:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T21:34:15","slug":"naoya-inoue-will-now-only-fight-jesse-bam-rodriguez-under-one-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827730\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue will now only fight Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez under one condition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naoya Inoue<\/a> has been linked to a fascinating showdown with pound-for-pound rival Jesse Rodriguez<\/a> in recent weeks, but it seems as though the meeting is far from guaranteed, with Inoue stating that he is not \u2018obsessed\u2019 with facing the Texan.<\/p>\n

Inoue defended his undisputed super-bantamweight world title for the seventh time when he scored a legendary win over fellow Japanese sensation Junto Nakatani back in May, in what many believe to be the biggest fight in the nation\u2019s long and proud history of boxing.<\/p>\n

That victory sparked rumours of an early 2027 clash with \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez, who vacated all three of his super-flyweight world titles to move closer to Inoue and up to bantamweight, where he then dethroned WBA champion Antonio Vargas a few weeks later.<\/p>\n

However, in the aftermath of the Vargas win, Rodriguez and his trainer Robert Garcia admitted that they are planning to have one more outing at 118lbs<\/a> before stepping up and challenging Inoue at 122lbs.<\/p>\n

A unification between Rodriguez and WBO bantamweight world champion Christian Medina is now being touted for either November or December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Upon hearing those rumours, Inoue has revealed that he is unwilling to further delay a fight with Rodriguez and threatened to move on from the proposal and up to featherweight, if it does not take place when he wishes, as per Sanspo.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t do it [fight Rodriguez] later [than February].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not particular about Bam either. If Bam says, \u2018I want to spend a little more [time] at bantamweight\u2019, I\u2019m already thinking about the featherweight challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can do it [fight Bam] around February, I will do it. However, if you go beyond that and get a little longer, I don\u2019t have to be that obsessed with Bam, and I am not obsessed. I will go my own way,\u201d<\/p>\n

Inoue\u2019s words may cause Eddie Hearn to rethink plans to stage Rodriguez-Medina at the end of the year, with a potential two month turnaround sure to prove too short for the American star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue has been linked to a fascinating showdown with pound-for-pound rival Jesse Rodriguez in recent weeks, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-827730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827730","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=827730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}