{"id":566114,"date":"2026-05-04T18:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/566114\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T18:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:38:07","slug":"eddie-hearn-says-he-has-the-man-to-beat-naoya-inoue-ive-never-been-more-convinced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/566114\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn says he has the man to beat Naoya Inoue: “I’ve never been more convinced”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eddie Hearn believes he has the perfect ace up his sleeve, especially after Naoya Inoue<\/a> went 12 rounds in a \u201ccompetitive fight\u201d with Junto Nakatani.<\/p>\n

Their super-bantamweight encounter on Saturday certainly had its competitive moments, but \u2018The Monster\u2019 ultimately showed his elite-level capabilities by claiming a unanimous decision victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Inoue successfully defended his undisputed crown at a sold-out Tokyo Dome, where his triumph over Nakatani could eventually be regarded as a career-best victory.<\/p>\n

It was not so much the optics of his performance, but rather the immense focus and discipline he showed, which made it such an impressive display.<\/p>\n

Given Nakatani\u2019s top 10 pound-for-pound status, too, \u2018The Monster\u2019 was under considerable pressure to maintain his position as the poster boy of Japanese boxing.<\/p>\n

But while the 33-year-old has previously expressed an interest in moving up to featherweight, bidding to become a five-division world champion, he is now expected to remain at 122lbs for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

This is because boxing\u2019s relevant stakeholders are exploring an undisputed showdown against Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez, who aims to become a three-weight world champion against WBA bantamweight titlist Antonio Vargas on June 13.<\/a><\/p>\n

After that, the unified king at 115lbs may look to move up a further weight class and challenge Inoue, who scored a points victory over David Picasso in Saudi Arabia last December.<\/p>\n

Based on that performance, and highlights from the Nakatani fight, Matchroom promoter Hearn has told Boxing News that he fully expects \u2018Bam\u2019 to dethrone \u2018The Monster.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched Inoue up close, in Saudi, and I\u2019ve never been more convinced that Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez beats him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long period of time, I thought it might be a step too far for Jesse. But now Jesse\u2019s up at bantamweight, and feels big and strong, I just think he\u2019s too good for [Inoue].<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s 26 years old. And what\u2019s Inoue \u2013 33 now? I don\u2019t see \u2018Bam\u2019 losing to Inoue. I thought Inoue would go through Nakatani \u2013 and do a right job on him \u2013 and, by all accounts, it was a very competitive fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the pound-for-pound star\u2019s victory over Nakatani, it was reported that Turki Alalshikh is keen for Inoue and Rodriguez to headline a Japan show in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn believes he has the perfect ace up his sleeve, especially after Naoya Inoue went 12 rounds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-566114","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\/566114","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=566114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}