Comments Thread For: Inoue-Tapales Undisputed Championship Targeted For December 26 In Tokyo

[Just looking]

Funny how everyone is putting bud at number 1 for the "quality of the opponents" but before the spence fight they were criticizing him for his terrible resume.

I remember arguing with hella fools on here about how bud would beat Spence before their fight and that the only thing they could talk about.

Inoue is obliterating any and everybody in his weight class. That's literally what p4p means.

Waht is pretty dumb. P4P should be about skill, not opposition. Nobody touches Inoue on skills though, so gotta find other metric I guess

[Just looking]

Chocolatito didn’t like the low money he was being offered and went with a higher payday. Obviously that’s not a duck.

At 115 lbs there was also Estrada and Cuadras and Rungvisai. Inoue fought none of them.

Though it wasn't actually a higher payday. Anyway, Inoue went on the US to fight in the same card as Chocolatito, what was clearly a set up for their showdown. But that was when he lost to Rungvisai. With an immediate rematch coming for them, Inoue had the WBSS tournament coming and chose to go up in weight instead of waiting for scraps. By this time Estrada was just getting in the division and fighting Cuadras for a mandatory

[Zaroku]

I will watch on NHK or TV Tokyo free

[messi807]

Navarette destroyed Valdez face with his weak left hand. He fought him with one hand, on the other side Pitbull came out clean with Tank. Not even Shakur damage Valdez face with his 2 hands and his Strong left hand. Or may I say weak Left hand.

Shakur actually dropped Valdez. Lol something Navarette couldn’t do. Shakur & Tank stop him

[boxingitis]

Shakur actually dropped Valdez. Lol something Navarette couldn’t do. Shakur & Tank stop him

They won't even get in the ring with him. Valedez was never hurt in the fight with Shakur. Shakur couldn't Stop Christopher Diaz, Navarrete did. Shakur didn't do any damage to Joet, Navarrete bruise up his right eye. Shakur did not damage to Valdez face, look what Navarette did with one hand, his weak one. If he had his two hands working they stop the fight. The eye was already fully closed. Worst than Ugas.

[_Rexy_]

Chocolatito didn’t like the low money he was being offered and went with a higher payday. Obviously that’s not a duck.

At 115 lbs there was also Estrada and Cuadras and Rungvisai. Inoue fought none of them.

Yes, we get it. It's not a duck they all went for better fights. But then you spin around and **** on Inoue for not fighting them, which isn't fair.

Not to mention that he didn't get a higher payday, he went and fought SSR and lost.

[Elheath]

Chocolatito didn’t like the low money he was being offered and went with a higher payday. Obviously that’s not a duck.
At 115 lbs there was also Estrada and Cuadras and Rungvisai. Inoue fought none of them.

I wrote something similar on a different thread, but during the 3 years (8 matches) Inoue fought at 115, him not being able to score a fight with any major names back then in 115 was a combination of (1) Inoue already known for being a dangerous high risk opponent from the way he destroyed Narvaez on his first fight at 115; (2) Inoue not having enough popularity outside Japan to be a good sale where the other big names fought at; (3) his popularity in Japan was high but not high enough to the general public yet to be able to afford the current record breaking purses to lure the other champions to come to Japan; (4) the notable names having mandatories/rematches/other plans in the timing he tried to fight. He was the typical high risk, low reward opponent.

Basically, to add on more details regarding his opponents to what I wrote in the other thread:

• Match 1: Dec 30th, 2014 Went up to 115 for a chance to challenge WBO champ Omar Narvaez in his first fight. Dropped him in R1 then knocked him out in R2 to win his second belt, but had injured his hand in the process, which pushed his next fight to a year later. While Inoue was injured, WBO had Warlito Parrenas and David Carmona have an eliminator fight to see who gets to fight Inoue for the belt when he returns. The match was a draw, so Inoue decided to fight them both for his next two matches anyway.
• Match 2: Dec 29, 2015 defeated Warlito Parrenas who was part of the eliminator
• Match 3: May 8, 2016 defeated David Carmona who was the other part of the eliminator. Around now, Chocolatito announced that he will go up to 115 in 2016, and Inoue wanted to fight him. Chocolatito refused because "the money wasn't good as Inoue was unknown in the US" and chose to fight Carlos Cuadras for his WBC belt instead. Understandable reason so not exactly a blatant duck, but Inoue did try to fight him and genuinely.
• Match 4: Sep 4, 2016 defeated Petchbarngborn Kokietgym, bluntly put it was a placeholder match because he couldn't score a fight with Chocolatito or another notable fighter. A month later, Estrada moved up to 115 in October and had his first tune-up match at 115.
• Match 5: Dec 30, 2016 defeated Kohei Kono. It is worth noting that Kono was the WBA champion since March 2014, but had just lost his belt to Luis Concepcion in August 2016. They were hoping for a major Japanese unification to celebrate end of the year, and had Kono not lost, it could've been Inoue's first unification match.
• ***March 2017 (the time I think where the unfortunate combination of bad timing all came together for Inoue)*** First, Chocolatito lost his title against Sor Rungvisai. With a rematch between them promised later that year, a chance for Inoue to get a match with Chocolatito in 2017 became close to none. He also won't get Rungvisai because he would be occupied with Chocolatito. In the mean time Estrada fought Anuar Salas for his second tune-up, then ends up fighting Cuadras next his next match in September so Inoue lost out on all four.
• Match 5: May 21, 2017 Ricardo Rodriguez because he wanted to fight someone in the first half while preparing for his US debut in the second half with hopes that it will lead to chances for an unification fight afterwards.
• Match 6: Sep 9, 2017 fought Antonio Nieves for his US debut as an undercard of Chocolatito-Sor Rungvisai rematch. Didn't really have much of a choice out of who's left outside Chocolatito/Rungvisai/Estrada/Cuadras. Had Chocolatito won the rematch, Inoue might have been able to slide in an unification with him for his next match, but Chocolatito lost the rematch then didn't fight for the next year.
• Dec 30, 2017 defeated Yoan Boyeaux in his annual end of year boxing party because Inoue's last ditch attempt to get a unification match with the IBF champion Jerwin Ancajas couldn't happen. Estrada and Sor Rungvisai were already occupied for a clash in February of 2018 (which Estrada ends up losing). Seeing as it probably was impossible to get an unification at this point, decides to go up to 118 and go for his next belt at a third division instead. Chocolatito would end up not fighting again until after Inoue went up to 118.
• May 25, 2018 Went up to 118 to defeat Jamie McDonnell for his WBA Regular belt, so he can fight in the WBSS scheduled later in the year where he was guaranteed to fight champs as long as he didn't lose, and the rest is history. Even then, COVID effed his plans by like a year or two, but still managed to go undisputed albeit a few good opponents missed out. In 122, all his work finally is paying off and as the biggest money guy in the lower weights, he can get other champions to easily accept a fight by the power of the purse. Trying to finally tie up some of the loose ends like Nery and Casimero that were missed in 118 before going up to 126.

If his opponents didn't lose at a certain timing prior to his fight and if Inoue had godly powers to somehow choose the opponents at his will disregarding boxing politics and the opponents were guaranteed to accept, in a perfect world with everything revolving around him (not happening, obviously) he could've had something like:
1) Narvaez (WBO champ)
2) Parrenas (WBO eliminator)
3) Carmona (WBO eliminator)
4) Chocolatito if he accepted to fight him instead of Cuadras...again, not a duck by Chocolatito, but can't blame Inoue for not fighting him.
5) Kono in an unification match (as the WBA champ had he not lost his last match before Inoue)
6+) Anyone ranging from Cuadras who would still be be the WBC champ had he not lost to Chocolatito and thus won't be doing an eliminator against Estrada, Estrada or Rungvisai who likely would've been itching for a chance at a belt again, and maybe even Ancajas (IBF champ) for undisputed if the chance was there.

Obviously that is a dream scenario what-if, but after the disappointing what-ifs in 115 and the COVID hindered 118, finally at 122, Inoue has reached the point where he became such a good purse that he can choose to fight almost anybody in the weight class and not worry about being dodged. 126 should also be the same as well when it comes to scoring good opponents.

[Elheath]

Yes, we get it. It's not a duck they all went for better fights. But then you spin around and **** on Inoue for not fighting them, which isn't fair.
Not to mention that he didn't get a higher payday, he went and fought SSR and lost.

Well to be more precise, Chocolatito fought Cuadras for his first fight at 115 to get a belt instead of Inoue who also had a belt, and won. But that would've been still fine, if they were able to score a unification match later on. It is his loss to Rungvisai on his second match at 115 which effed up everything because due to the rematch and everything else really put a dent on the Inoue-Chocolatito plans

[JOITATS]

Not only did Chocolatito turn down the Inoue fight, “because of the money”, after Cuadras, he went on to fight Rungvisai after that. Which makes no sense.

Another thing, Choco was asked later if he would be willing to fight Inoue at 118. he said, “No, I’m not interested. It’s not in my plans.” He went on to fight Estrada a third time.

[Airtioteclint]

People who say Inoue ducked Chocolatito, Estrada and rungvisai themselves don't believe that any of them can beat Inoue. Estrada would be the only one to make it interesting before the imminent knockout. They're only digging and reaching for something bad to say.

Y'all wasting your breath trying to reason with clowns.