How to Watch: Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso

When is Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso?

Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso is on Saturday, December 27. The broadcast will begin at 4 a.m. Eastern Time (9 a.m. GMT). 

What channel is Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso on?

Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso is a pay-per-view available for purchase via DAZN.

Where is Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso?

The fight is taking place at Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Who is Naoya Inoue?

Naoya Inoue is the undisputed junior featherweight champion, a guaranteed future Hall of Fame inductee who has been the king of two weight divisions and a titleholder in two others. He is a superlative talent who is widely considered one of the best boxers in the entire sport.

Inoue, a 32-year-old from Japan, has compiled quite a resume while building his record of 31-0 (27 KOs). He turned pro toward the end of 2012, and by his fourth fight was in the ring with the 18-1-1 Ryoichi Taguchi, outpointing the future 108lb titleholder and Ring Magazine champion. By early 2014, Inoue had his first belt, stopping junior flyweight Adrian Hernandez in the sixth round. Inoue made one defense and then skipped over flyweight, jumping straight to junior bantamweight and blasting out longtime titleholder Omar Narvaez in a mere two rounds in December 2014 to earn his first of two BoxingScene Fighter of the Year awards.

Inoue made seven title defenses at 115lbs and then moved up to bantamweight in 2018. As good as he had been up to that point, building a dedicated following among the hardcore fans, it was at 118 that Inoue moved to the next level in terms of both accomplishment and awareness.

Inoue tore through a pair of solid opponents: secondary titleholder Jamie McDonnell and former titleholder Juan Carlos Payano, who lasted a combined three minutes. Inoue then made short work of a very good undefeated titleholder in Emmanuel Rodriguez, who couldn’t make it out of the second round. 

After that came a unification bout in November 2019 with the resurgent Nonito Donaire. Inoue triumphed in a battle that both The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America awarded with Fight of the Year honors. Inoue also went through enough hell – including a fractured orbital – that he understandably spent nearly a year away, a well-timed layoff given the coronavirus pandemic that shut down much of the sport for a handful of months in 2020.

By 2022, Inoue and Donaire met again, this time with the WBC belt also on the line. The sequel was nothing like the original; Inoue sent Donaire packing in the second round. Inoue wrapped the year with what amounted to a fait accompli, defeating an action-allergic Paul Butler via 11th-round TKO to earn the WBO title and recognition as undisputed bantamweight champion.

Inoue subsequently dedicated his 2023 to achieving the same feat in another weight class. First came his eighth-round stoppage of one unified titleholder, Stephen Fulton. Next came a 10th-round KO of the person with the other two belts, Marlon Tapales. These two victories earned Inoue the Fighter of the Year award from BoxingScene and the BWAA.

In May 2024, Inoue stopped a top contender in former titleholder Luis Nery, though he showed his first signs of mortality since the Donaire fight in doing so: Inoue’s defense grew porous in his aggression and Nery floored him heavily in the first round with a left hand. Inoue then remained busy with a TKO win over another former titleholder, TJ Doheny. Inoue was supposed to end the year by taking on mandatory contender Sam Goodman, only for that fight to be postponed when Goodman was cut in sparring.

The same thing happened to Goodman ahead of their rescheduled date, so Inoue kicked off 2025 with an easy win over late replacement Ye Joon Kim. In May, Inoue again was downed early by a well-timed, well-placed counter shot landed by Ramon Cardenas. Cardenas was an enormous underdog before the fight but fought with skill and immense determination. Inoue managed to recover, adjusted to Cardenas’ aggressive style, and took over the bout en route to an eighth-round TKO.

Lessons learned from the Nery and Cardenas victories, Inoue recognized the need to shore up his defense ahead of a September bout with mandatory challenger Murodjon Akhmadaliev, a former unified titleholder who was seen as the top remaining contender at 122lbs. Inoue was more measured but still entertaining while winning a wide decision over Akhmadaliev, whose only moment of success came when he rocked Inoue in the final seconds of Round 12.

This fight with Alan David Picasso will be Inoue’s fourth of 2025. It gets a mandatory defense out of the way, continues Inoue’s relationship with boxing powerbroker Turki Alalshikh, and is meant to set up a highly anticipated clash with three-division titleholder Junto Nakatani at the Tokyo Dome in May.

Who is Alan David Picasso?

Alan David Picasso, 32-0-1 (17 KOs), is undefeated but unheralded, especially when contrasted with many of the opponents Naoya Inoue previously faced at 122lbs. Why, then, is Inoue facing the 25-year-old fighter from Mexico? 

For two reasons: One, Picasso had been Inoue’s top-ranked challenger in the WBC ratings when this fight was signed, though Picasso has since been supplanted by Junto Nakatani (Picasso is also ranked 8th by the WBO and 10th by the WBA). Two, this fight will allow Inoue to remain busy ahead of a planned megafight with Nakatani in 2026.

Of course, Picasso wants to play the spoiler.

Aside from being the younger fighter, Picasso will also have the height advantage, standing at 5-foot-8, three inches taller than the champion. He will otherwise need to overcome a huge gulf in experience and skill. 

Picasso’s biggest win to date came in August 2024, when he outpointed Azat Hovhannisyan, a former title challenger who came up short in his challenge of Rey Vargas in 2018. For more recent context: Hovhannisyan was knocked out by Nery prior to the Picasso bout and has since lost a decision to Sebastian Hernandez Reyes, an undefeated contender who will be facing Nakatani on the same card.

Picasso has added three more victories since then, all at featherweight: He shut out the 24-9-1 Diego Alberto Ruiz, knocked out the 13-2-1 Yehison Cuello, and took a majority decision over the 15-4-2 Kyonosuke Kameda on the July undercard of Manny Pacquiao’s draw against Mario Barrios.

What other fights are on the undercard of Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso?

The undercard includes the junior featherweight debut of Junto Nakatani after his title reigns at 112, 115 and 118lbs. Nakatani, 31-0 (24 KOs), is on course to challenge Inoue in what would be a massive fight in Japan. But first Nakatani has to do his part and get by Sebastian Hernandez Reyes, 20-0 (18 KOs), who is coming off a wide decision win in May over aforementioned former title challenger Hovhannisyan.

There’s also a title fight on this show featuring Willibaldo Garcia defending his IBF junior bantamweight belt against Kenshiro Teraji. The winner would likely head toward a fight with Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez for the undisputed championship at 115lbs. Garcia, 23-6-2 (13 KOs), picked up the title in May with a split decision nod in his rematch with Rene Calixto. Teraji, 25-2 (16 KOs), is a former two-division titleholder whose unified reign at flyweight came to a surprising end in July, when he dropped a split decision to Ricardo Sandoval.

The full list of undercard fights can be seen on BoxRec.

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.