{"id":330365,"date":"2025-12-22T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T20:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/330365\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T20:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T20:33:10","slug":"naoya-inoue-reacts-to-terence-crawfords-sudden-retirement-from-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/330365\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue reacts to Terence Crawford’s sudden retirement from boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terence Crawford<\/a> exited the current pound-for-pound debate last week when he announced his retirement from the sport of boxing, leaving many to slot Naoya Inoue<\/a> at number one.<\/p>\n

The switch-hitter from Omaha, Nebraska made a sudden announcement that he was hanging up the gloves while rumours were swirling that he may rematch Saul \u2018Canelo\u2019 Alvarez next year.<\/p>\n

Crawford beat Canelo via unanimous decision to become a three-weight undisputed world champion. Having won belts in a total of five divisions and compiling an undefeated record of 42-0, he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame with open arms.<\/p>\n

Some in the sport would have liked to see \u2018Bud\u2019 continue, but Japanese superstar Inoue \u2014 who has been undisputed in two divisions \u2014 told Fight Hub TV<\/a> that he was not surprised.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a stage that will come to any fighter, so I\u2019m not thinking anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crawford has been praised by the likes of Andre Ward and Roy Jones Jr for bowing out on top.<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked if the retirement puts him in the number one pound-for-pound slot, Inoue nodded, though he has considered himself the best for a long time, above both Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk, the man who rounds out the widely accepted top three.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old looks to prove that one again when he faces David Picasso in this year\u2019s final major fight card.<\/a> The Riyadh Season main event is propped up by a bout between Junto Nakatani and Sebastian Hernandez, with tentative plans in place for Inoue and Nakatani to face off in May of next year at the Tokyo Dome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford exited the current pound-for-pound debate last week when he announced his retirement from the sport of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-330365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}