The Naoya Inoue next fight news has arrived and the reigning boxing champion will be competing in his home country. Inoue will take on Luis Nery in May.
The reigning and undisputed super bantamweight champion will meet Luis Nery for the title. The bout will take place May 6 from the Tokyo Dome and air live on ESPN+.
Inoue, the undisputed super bantamweight champion, is one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world. He is a four-weight champion, having held the light flyweight, super flyweight and bantamweight belts. In 2022, he stopped Paul Butler to become the first undisputed champion at 118 pounds in half a century.
A few months later, Inoue dominated Stephen Fulton to become WBC and WBO super bantamweight champion. This past December, he knocked out Marlon Tapales to claim the WBA, IBF and The Ring titles.
He is the first-ever undisputed super bantamweight champion in boxing history. Only Inoue, Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields and Terence Crawford are active boxers with and two-weight undisputed champions.
A former champion: Nery, a pro since 2012, won the WBC and The Ring bantamweight belts back in 2017. He stopped Shinsuke Yamanaka that night but was stripped of The Ring title after a failed weigh-in.
In his WBC title defense, Nery missed weight. He was again stripped of the belt and barred from fighting in Japan. That is no longer the case, as he will fight in Japan and is 9-1 over his last 10.
Finishes: Inoue is not one for the scorecards. He has claimed 23 knockouts in his career, including seven in a row. The quickest was the second round TKO of Nonito Donaire in 2022. Each of his last five fights have been in Japan.
His willingness to stand and deliver the knockout blow. With those 23 finishes, Inoue is a finisher. Plus, ever since his decision to turn pro, he has always taken on the toughest challenges.
His first pro fight was against a Filipino national champion. From there, he battled a Thai national champion and Japan’s No. 1 ranked light flyweight at the time. In just his fourth pro bouts, he was competing for titles, winning the Japanese light flyweight belt.
Through the course of his career, Inoue has amassed a net worth of $7 million.
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