Angelo Leo fighting in Japan should get Naoya Inoue's attention
May 21, 2025 • 6:00 AM ET
Angelo Leo shunned a hometown title defense in favor of playing the long game of venturing to Japan for Saturday’s first IBF featherweight title defense against the veteran Tomoki Kameda.
“Overseas; bigger payday,” Leo explained in an interview with ProBox TV.
It’s more than that, however.
It’s also about the unbeaten four-division and undisputed junior-featherweight world champion Naoya Inoue 30-0 (27 KOs).
From the perspective of the 31-year-old Leo 25-1 (12 KOs), victory over Kameda is expected and a future date with Inoue is “inevitable”.
By going to Japan, “My name is associated with his name. I’m all for it. Pound-for-pound, he’s the best fighter in the world, and I’m in the sport to be the best”.
The 32-year-old Inoue said after his hard-fought stoppage victory over Ramon Cardenas on May 4 that he would only move up the four pounds to featherweight if he could no longer make the 122lbs limit.
But coming off the knockout of the year to wrest the belt from Luis Alberto Lopez in August, the former junior-featherweight champion Leo is hopeful of building upon the buzz by defeating the 33-year-old Kameda 42-4 (23 KOs), a former bantamweight champion.
Arriving in Japan with his sparring partners in tow, Leo said he’s been treated warmly there, and is looking forward to renewing acquaintances with Kameda, whom he sparred in 2018 and 2021.
“It was good work,” Leo said on Monday’s edition of ProBox TV, which will stream his fight on a card expected to begin by 11pm Eastern on Friday. “I got the better of him. You guys will see how I handle [the fight].”
ProBox TV’s Chris Algieri noted that he saw Leo with his belt over his shoulder at the Inoue fight.
“I’ll leave Japan with it, and I’m not taking ‘No’ for an answer,” Leo said. “The first title I won came during Covid and I wasn’t able to appreciate it, but this second one – the knockout of the year in my hometown [of Albuquerque, New Mexico] – it’s everything I dreamed of as a kid. Losing my first title made me hungry, and going to Japan introduces me to a whole new crowd.
“They’re going to know me even more.”
Lance Pugmire has been a full-time boxing writer for nearly 20 years, serving now as BoxingScene’s U.S. Senior Writer and assistant producer for ProBoxTV’s “BoxingScene Today.” Pugmire capped a near 20-year career at the Los Angeles Times (sports investigations, NHL/MLB beat work, law enforcement/courts and boxing/UFC) to join The Athletic, and then USA Today. Pugmire’s stint at The Times started with the first Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fight and the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jnr then-record pay-per-view, leading through a slew of ringside assignments at major bouts, including Mayweather-Pacquiao, Mayweather-Canelo and the Canelo-Golovkin trilogy. Lance’s appreciation for boxing is rooted in his admiration and appreciation for the fighters, gladiators who have proven to be the most forthcoming and candid of all the athletes he has interviewed over a career dating to 1990. Lance was honored to be named the 2022 winner of the Boxing Writers Association of America Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence and he’s collected many BWAA writing awards in categories ranging from breaking news to deep-dive long features.
