Comments Thread For: Naoya Inoue: If Unifications Don't Happen, I'll Think About Going To Super Bantamweight

[RuleOfTheSpear]

Strip Casimero and make the vacant belt apart of the 4 belt unification rematch between Donaire and Inoue. There ya go boxing. You're welcome

You're what's wrong with boxing.

[Madison Boxing]

What an utter sausage.

what elite fighters has he beat? p4p list type level opponents. fact is them weight classes are terrible, noones heard of his most his opponents, noone really cares about them either and theres way too many of the lighter divisions so its not that impressive when he beats someone who is ranked 8th or 9th in a division with no depth. as i said the one guy who can sort of be used as a yardstick for quality (donaire) almost beat him when he was a good 10 years literally past his prime. then people changed their tune after the fight saying it was a good win, when in the build up people were fearing for danaires health saying hes shot to ****, not looked good in years etc

[JOITATS]

Are there any household names below 135?

My biggest issue with Inoue is that he kind of coasted past superfly and avoided some great potential matchups there. Infact those are basically where all those household names reside.

well no,
same thing happened when he was at superfly. inoue was extremely vocal about wanting to fight chocolatito.
but choco opted to fight other guys instead. inoue said if he didn't get the fight, he was going to move up and he did.

[Dreamking]

none of the fighters on that list are elite household names. donaire maybe was 10 years ago

but
#6 Isaac Cruz
#9 Mario Barrios
#7 Jose Pedraza
are elite household names? LMFAO

[YoungManRumble]

well no,
same thing happened when he was at superfly. inoue was extremely vocal about wanting to fight chocolatito.
but choco opted to fight other guys instead. inoue said if he didn't get the fight, he was going to move up and he did.

Well there was still the likes of Estrada, Ioka, Nietes, even Sor Rungvisai etc. Guys that weren't brutally knocked out...

[JOITATS]

what elite fighters has he beat? p4p list type level opponents. fact is them weight classes are terrible, noones heard of his most his opponents, noone really cares about them either and theres way too many of the lighter divisions so its not that impressive when he beats someone who is ranked 8th or 9th in a division with no depth. as i said the one guy who can sort of be used as a yardstick for quality (donaire) almost beat him when he was a good 10 years literally past his prime. then people changed their tune after the fight saying it was a good win, when in the build up people were fearing for danaires health saying hes shot to ****, not looked good in years etc

i have no idea how you measure quality. for a boxer to be considered elite, they have to be a household name in the U.S.?
that's just ignorant and ******.
the bantam division has always been deeper outside of the U.S., in places like japan, asia, latin america... where the elite fighters are those you have never heard of.
anyways, i'm assume you live in some cornfield in middle america.

[JOITATS]

Well there was still the likes of Estrada, Ioka, Nietes, even Sor Rungvisai etc. Guys that weren't brutally knocked out...

no, this is before rungvisai beat choc.

when inoue was calling out choco, he was p4p#1, unbeaten.
estrada had already lost to choco and a couple more names. nietes wasn't on anyone's to fight list. and sor rungvisai was a no-name before he fought choco.
maybe ioka was the only one he could have...

[YoungManRumble]

no, this is before rungvisai beat choc.

when inoue was calling out choco, he was p4p#1, unbeaten.
estrada had already lost to choco and a couple more names. nietes wasn't on anyone's to fight list. and sor rungvisai was a no-name before he fought choco.
maybe ioka was the only one he could have...

Ah okay, gotcha. Honestly, I was just starting to seriously get into boxing then so my timelines are all messed up. And I certainly wasn't following the lower divisions back then. I still show my noob colours sometimes even though I like to think of myself as a fairly knowledgeable late-in-life casual hardcore fan. Yeah, that's a mouthful... but thanks for setting me straight.

[DFM]

Tank has fought 3 top 10 contenders:
#6 Isaac Cruz
#9 Mario Barrios
#7 Jose Pedraza (reigning IBF super featherweight champion)

Inoue has fought:
#10 Ryoichi Taguchi August 2013 (future WBA/IBF/Ring light flyweight champion)
#1 Adrian Hernandez April 2014 (reigning WBC light flyweight champion)
#1 Omar Narvaez December 2014 (reigning WBO super flyweight champion)
#8 Kohei Kono December 2016 (2X WBA super flyweight champion)
#5 Jamie McDonnell (former IBF bantamweight champion)
#5 Juan Carlos Payano (former WBA bantamweight champion)
#6 Emmanuel Rodriguez (reigning IBF bantamweight champion)
#4 Nonito Donaire (unification, reigning WBA bantamweight champion)
#8 Jason Moloney

It's not even close.

Also Inoue was ducked by Chocolatito and Rungvisai. No one talks about that!

[drablj]

Ah okay, gotcha. Honestly, I was just starting to seriously get into boxing then so my timelines are all messed up. And I certainly wasn't following the lower divisions back then. I still show my noob colours sometimes even though I like to think of myself as a fairly knowledgeable late-in-life casual hardcore fan. Yeah, that's a mouthful... but thanks for setting me straight.

inoue moved up to super flyweight in 2014 and knocked out narvaez who was #1 and a 2 division champion for 10 years (albeit old at the time). the only time when chocolatito realistically could have fought inoue was when he moved up to super flyweight instead of fighting cuadras (inoue and cuadras were top2). inoue injured his hand vs. narvaez and needed almost a year to recover. in the meantime, there was an eliminator for his title which ended in a draw unfortunatelly. wbo decided that inoue had to fight BOTH of them (parenas and carmona) which he did. inoue injured his hand again vs. carmona but won decisively even with one hand. carmona almost defeated cuadras later. after 2 mandatories in a row inoue was available for everybody. at roughly the same time hbo wanted to build up inoue - chocolatito clash.

chocolatito decided to fight cuadras for the title. his purse was bigger than if he fought inoue at that time. nobody can blame choco for picking cuadras. choco won but it was close and wbc wanted a rematch. sor rungvisai was an overdue mandatory. wbc then told chocolatito to choose: sor rungvisai, cuadras or get stripped. roman opted to fight sor rungvisai and lost 2 times. estrada and ioka shortly after followed the money (chocolatito was the only cash cow in the lower divisions) and moved up to sf. when gonzalez decisively lost to sor rungvisai, estrada became wbc mandatory. sor rungvisai defeated estrada and became the lineal champion and clear #1. make no mistake, gonzalez - inoue would have happened if roman kept his title. since he lost, he went in a slump for a while. inoue couldn't make the weight anymore and moved up when wbss bantamweight tournament was announced.

nobody ducked anybody. they are no cowards. gonzalez, inoue, estrada, cuadras, sor rungvisai and ioka are all warriors and deserve respect. i just wanted to tell you about the landscape back then since you were not following closely.

i want inoue to wait for estrada at bantamweight and then move up. damn covid derailed his agreed fight vs. casimero. murodjon and fulton both have mandatories (danny roman is wbc's). if inoue can't fight those 3, why move up? plus donaire, casimero and estrada potentially are bigger money fights. the only good reason to move up now would be if he can't make the weight.