Inoue is pfp no1. But Bud is FOTY, thats a good tradeoff. I think Inoue gets FOTY too though to be frank.
Inoue will get FOTY. Becoming undisputed 2nd division in a year of moving up, and doing it in 2 fights against 2 unified champs that outweights the 1 GREAT win by Bud (and only 1 fight this year)
vs who? those divisions are very thin, and the gaps between weights are so small. He is way over hyped. It’s so easy to look great in his position, beating up dudes with no power.
And yet, nobody else is doing it.
Monster indeed.
And the clear P4P King.
vs who? those divisions are very thin, and the gaps between weights are so small. He is way over hyped. Its so easy to look great in his position, beating up dudes with no power.
Still looks like there's a bigger percentage doing it at the higher weight classes than not. That's nearly half of all the weight classes, and only a third of the 3 belt holders within those 7 of 17 classes.
Falling into mediocrity speaks to my point that they have to be good to actually be successful at the lower weight classes. I agree that top 10, especially when it's alphabet organization rankings, means less at the lower weight classes. But the actual top guys tend to be pretty good, making it harder to move up and be a real top guy.
And Inoue has fought nothing but the best available competition his whole career, including the best guy in his divisional debut 3 times now. He's the kind of boxer fans wish every boxer was; literally signed a contract with the owner of his gym saying he'd never take easy fights. I can't think of another boxer who has taken the kind of fights he has at the rate he has, even historically. He's a real throwback to the notion of the best fighting the best.
Makes no sense to me why people try to deny his accomplishments. I'd think they'd want more fighters to emulate him, rather than be the modern sort that ducks top competition, lets fights "marinate" or wait until "they cross the street", or imposes rehydration clauses etc. He doesn't fight with rematch clauses, none of the BS we see from other top fighters. And he always shows up and shows out.
His supporting party also has a good mind set too. When it was announced that Inoue was vacating his 108 belt and going up two divisions from 108 to 115 on his 8th match to face Omar Narvaez, practically every boxing ”expert” said it was still too early in his career, that he should take it slower to gain experience against weaker opponents, the risk was too high, etc etc... However, his trainer (father) said so what if he loses, then his son should learn from the loss and practice more, and come back stronger again for another challenge. That is the correct mindset you should have, not see who would give the best chance of winning to pad the resume while keeping the zero.
And for those who don't bother with the lower weights, Narvaez at the time was 43-1, but was undefeated in 13 matches at 115 and the number one rated guy in the division. His only loss was against a 28 years old Donaire in a UD in the one time he challenged 118 for the belt over three years ago. He had 11 straight defenses at 115 with three KO in the last four defenses leading up to Inoue. Inoue was 21 years old and 7-0 at the time.
Ironically, his total dominance of Narvaez left such an impact on the rest of 115 that afterwards no one wanted to fight him for three years.
I couldn't disagree more with the bold. I'd agree you need more physical ability & talent on avg to be successful as a smaller guy since power is less in play, but the depth is definitely not there. The fact so many guys get into the top ten with less than ten fights & then fall off into medoracity when they lose kinda proves that.
The 3 weight thing is factually untrue. Of the 55 3 weight belt holders 20 (36%) did it in weights 126lbs or under. 9 (16%) of the 55 won their first belt at 105lbs. And I believe 105 to 112 is the most popular 3 belt guy altho I'd have to double check that to be 100%.
Still looks like there's a bigger percentage doing it at the higher weight classes than not. That's nearly half of all the weight classes, and only a third of the 3 belt holders within those 7 of 17 classes.
Falling into mediocrity speaks to my point that they have to be good to actually be successful at the lower weight classes. I agree that top 10, especially when it's alphabet organization rankings, means less at the lower weight classes. But the actual top guys tend to be pretty good, making it harder to move up and be a real top guy.
And Inoue has fought nothing but the best available competition his whole career, including the best guy in his divisional debut 3 times now. He's the kind of boxer fans wish every boxer was; literally signed a contract with the owner of his gym saying he'd never take easy fights. I can't think of another boxer who has taken the kind of fights he has at the rate he has, even historically. He's a real throwback to the notion of the best fighting the best.
Makes no sense to me why people try to deny his accomplishments. I'd think they'd want more fighters to emulate him, rather than be the modern sort that ducks top competition, lets fights "marinate" or wait until "they cross the street", or imposes rehydration clauses etc. He doesn't fight with rematch clauses, none of the BS we see from other top fighters. And he always shows up and shows out.
Getting a high KO rate in title matches is also doable if you dodge unifications and just stick to crummy mandatory and voluntary defenses. What makes Inoue's career also a rarity for this era is how fast he challenged a world champion in this era. It has happened more often in the past, but frankly within the last decade, how many notable young prospects of any weight class these day became a two division champ by their 8th pro match?
Off the top of my head, there is Loma who won first title on 3rd match then second title on 7th match. Kosei Tanaka won on 5th and 8th match, but both Loma and Tanaka fought for a vacant belt for their first belt. Ioka was 7th and 11th, but I can't think of many more.
Belt fights could mean anything as far as quality opposition. Lotsa bs belt ranked guys.
Fighting indie top ten guys is a more meaningful stat & I'm sure Monster has a good record vs those types too but not quite 80% of his fights like this is.
His record against independently ranked top 10 is fully half his career. Most of them were top 4 when he fought them. There's no active boxer who has a record representing as high a level of competition. Not even close.
I'm also going to point out that, despite having fewer fighters in the lower weight classes on average, and smaller weight differences between classes, along with a lower percentage change between classes, the level of competition appears to be higher. It's far more rare to have guys that are able to go from class to class and be successful at the lower classes than the higher ones. There's not that many guys who have been able to go from, say, 105-108-112 and have success at 122 and up. Of the 22 quad champions, only 7 started below 122. In contrast, going from light to welterweight isn't that big of an accomplishment. It's more or less expected.
For instance, do you expect guys like Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, etc to eventually compete and do well at 147? I doubt anyone would be surprised. But do you think you'll see Bam Rodriguez or Sunny Edwards being successful at 122? Junto Nakatani doing well at 130?
I suspect because the money is so much worse at the lower weight classes, fighters can't make it unless they're able to compete at a high enough level, where it's easier to make a living at the more popular weight classes, even at lower skill levels.
He's beaten a lot of quality guys. Who's disagreeing with that?
I'm simply saying belt fights don't mean quality opps so this stat doesn't mean all that much esp cuz lower weight divisions are notoriously as thin as some female divisions & in general belt rankings are sh^tty. Monster vs top ten indie ranked guys likely is similarly impressive, but more realistic to quality opps he's beaten.
I agree that belts can be trash (especially secondary WBA titles), but going 20-0 with 18 KOs is still an insane achievement. When belts are on the line, the opponents are hungrier, train harder, and more often than not bring it to another level.
Chocolatito is on record turning down a fight with Inoue because he didn't think Inoue was well known enough for it to make enough money to satisfy him. So he took a different fight instead, then got knocked out, and tied up the aforementioned guys in rematches. Meanwhile Inoue moved up and made a huge name and the rest is history. It's literally fact. You might have missed it because you don't pay attention to the lower weight classes, but that's your bias, nothing more.
this is probably along the lines of it, i don't follow the sport the way i used to, especially below 135.
Two of the four have admitted to taking other offers instead of fighting Inoue.
And you just likely explained why they wouldn't fight him, because American fans didn't know who TF he was, and he was the most dangerous opponent.
Inoue moved up to 118 for the WBSS tournament instead of fighting Cuadras who was coming off a loss and had no title. I think that's a far better move, considering most "fans" would say "WHY IS HE FIGHTING CUADRAS?!? CUADRAS JUST LOST!! WHAT A BUM!! SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT CHOCO!"
nobody in those divisions are huge celebrities in america. i'm sure there were some promotional/network issues involved since most of those super flyweights were on HBO though. i don't recall anyone complaining about cuadras fighting any of the other 115 guys after losing a close fight to chocolatito. boxing fans will b1tch and complain about most fights/fighters though, as can be seen with my posts in this thread lol
Belt fights could mean anything as far as quality opposition. Lotsa bs belt ranked guys.
Fighting indie top ten guys is a more meaningful stat & I'm sure Monster has a good record vs those types too but not quite 80% of his fights like this is.
He's fought and KO'd the #1 ranked guy by TBRB and/or the Ring in four weight divisions. His bantamweight run had him KOing the #1, #2, #3, and #4 ranked guys.
Zero cherry picking in his career.
In a span of one minute, I randomly scrolled the forum and see a thread with Inoue in the title that perked my interest, but then saw who started it and cringed, debated very hard with myself whether I want to join in on a post that I can already assume will have no worthy content except the certified Inoue hater disguised as an obsessed lover to spread crazy unintelligent posts about him to bring out other haters, and ultimately decided to add my opinion after all.
I think the fact that Inoue hasn't ended a match without a world title since his 5th match of his career spanning 4 divisions so far makes it more impressive than simply being 18ko in 20 matches.
6th match win first world title at 108
8th match win second division world title at first match in 115
15th match win third division world title on his first match at 118, albeit it was the fake "Regular" belt, but cancels it out by clearing out the division
25th match win fourth division world title in his first match at 122
And yes, Chocolatito can claim money was the issue for taking Cuadras instead of Inoue for his first belt at 115, but to not accept Inoue's unification offer after the match which he was there, only to take a voluntary defense against a beltless SSR was a duck. Him losing further made the choice dumb. Estrada was taking it very slow in 115 and didn't even get a belt until after Inoue went up to 118. Ancajas simply refused.
i have a hard time believing all of those guys fought each other multiple times (chocolatito, estrada, rungvisai, cuadras) but didn't want to fight inoue whose only claim to fame at that time was stopping some guy that went the distance with donaire. i'm not saying inoue sucks or anything. he's a good boxer. i just think most of the divisions below 130 right now are absolute garbage
Two of the four have admitted to taking other offers instead of fighting Inoue.
And you just likely explained why they wouldn't fight him, because American fans didn't know who TF he was, and he was the most dangerous opponent.
Inoue moved up to 118 for the WBSS tournament instead of fighting Cuadras who was coming off a loss and had no title. I think that's a far better move, considering most "fans" would say "WHY IS HE FIGHTING CUADRAS?!? CUADRAS JUST LOST!! WHAT A BUM!! SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT CHOCO!"
Inoue is pfp no1. But Bud is FOTY, thats a good tradeoff. I think Inoue gets FOTY too though to be frank.
I hope it's Inoue or someone else, you can't give it to a Crawford after 1 fight, no matter how good his performance was
i have a hard time believing all of those guys fought each other multiple times (chocolatito, estrada, rungvisai, cuadras) but didn't want to fight inoue whose only claim to fame at that time was stopping some guy that went the distance with donaire. i'm not saying inoue sucks or anything. he's a good boxer. i just think most of the divisions below 130 right now are absolute garbage
Chocolatito is on record turning down a fight with Inoue because he didn't think Inoue was well known enough for it to make enough money to satisfy him. So he took a different fight instead, then got knocked out, and tied up the aforementioned guys in rematches. Meanwhile Inoue moved up and made a huge name and the rest is history. It's literally fact. You might have missed it because you don't pay attention to the lower weight classes, but that's your bias, nothing more.
You mean the other champs at 115 wouldn't fight him?
i have a hard time believing all of those guys fought each other multiple times (chocolatito, estrada, rungvisai, cuadras) but didn't want to fight inoue whose only claim to fame at that time was stopping some guy that went the distance with donaire. i'm not saying inoue sucks or anything. he's a good boxer. i just think most of the divisions below 130 right now are absolute garbage
how many fights the little chocolate guy had before he got knocked out when people where he was better than Crawford, Canelo, Usyk and everyone? Inoue is nice but little midget dude who is going to get stopped when another little midget dude takes his punch and sleeps him but he is nice for a little dude.
Chocolotito was robbed against Sir Rungvisai in the first fight. He was clearly beating him. I don't care what anyone says. And when he fought him again, there was something clearly wrong with him. I have no idea what it was, but he was clearly not himself, and everyone noticed it.
Chocootito was also robbed against Estrada. Again, I don't care what anyone says; he beat Estrada.
2y ago
Naoya Inoue Is 20-0 (18 KO) In Title Fights... | BoxingScene Community