{"id":516422,"date":"2026-03-05T17:58:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516422\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:58:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:58:06","slug":"naoya-inoue-targeted-for-super-fight-by-pound-for-pound-star-hes-the-biggest-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516422\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue targeted for super fight by pound-for-pound star: &#8220;He&#8217;s the biggest challenge&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/naoya-inoue\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Naoya Inoue<\/a> is regarded by many to be the pound-for-pound king, but now there is a fellow multi-divisional world champion who is eyeing up a fight with the Japanese phenomenon, even targeting a clash with his brother first.<\/p>\n<p>Inoue has ruled supreme in four weight classes but it is his recent efforts at bantamweight and super-bantamweight, where he became a two-division undisputed world champion, that have forced the world to take notice.<\/p>\n<p>After claiming all four belts at 118lbs, he stepped up to 122lbs in 2023 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12183\/13037636\/naoya-inoue-strikes-down-marlon-tapales-in-10-rounds-to-become-two-division-undisputed-champion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">needed just two bouts to dethrone both unified titleholders<\/a> and become the second multi-weight undisputed champion of the four-belt era.<\/p>\n<p>Now, \u2018The Monster\u2019 is set for his toughest task to date, as <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/inoue-vs-nakatani-fight-date-and-venue\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he takes on unbeaten countryman Junto Nakatani on Saturday, May 2, at the Tokyo Dome<\/a> in a historic event for Japanese boxing.<\/p>\n<p>Should he come through that test unscathed, unified super-flyweight champion Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez told The Ring that he is willing to face both of the Inoue brothers in the near future, ahead of a move up to bantamweight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best fight to make for Bam at 118 right now is against the WBC champion, Takuma Inoue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat would be very exciting, to beat Takuma and then face the brother, Naoya, in a big fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a great fight and a great plan to look forward to and very well could be a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest challenge for Bam in the future is Naoya Inoue. He\u2019s not going to hold back too long before going up against someone like him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Takuma Inoue won the vacant WBC bantamweight title with a victory over Tenshin Nasukawa in November, and a clash against Rodriguez could indeed pave the way to a future battle between \u2018Bam\u2019 and Naoya Inoue. Boxing News understands that Takuma is set to fight on the Inoue-Nakatani undercard against Kazuto Ioka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue is regarded by many to be the pound-for-pound king, but now there is a fellow multi-divisional&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-516422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}