By Joe Koizumi
Photo by Naoki Fukuda
Data by The Hochi Shimbun
It was in his just sixth professional bout that Naoya Inoue (29-0, 26 KOs) acquired his first world belt in 2014. He was then only twenty years of age. Monster Inoue is now thirty-one, which means he has been reigning as world champion in four categories through eleven glorious years. The Hochi Shimbun, one of our leading sports papers here in Japan, showed its statistics by counting the data of all previously remarkable world champions and then placed Inoue’s standing position among them after his latest successful defense over Ye-Joon Kim on January 24. Naoya (who has scored ten consecutive knockouts) fantastically tied the great champion Joe Louis’ record in terms of knockout victories registered in world title bouts–at twenty-two. Repeat, Inoue has a very high KO ratio in 24-0, 22 KOs only in his world title contests.
Furthermore, as of numbers of victories in word title bouts, Naoya has reached a remarkable landmark of Bernard Hopkins at twenty-four. As you see the attached list, Naoya is still behind such marvelous champions as Chavez, Mayweather, De La Hoya, Klitschko, et al. We record-keepers truly appreciate the elaboration of The Hochi Shimbun, which so kindly allowed this reporter to introduce the said data to the boxing world through Fightnews.com®. Great thanks.
I think he’ll go down as the best small fighter of all time. There isn’t anyone who peaked below featherweight who I think was clearly better than Inoue.
He’s an incredibly amazing and gifted young man. I really hope he doesn’t stay too long in this port so that he can retire undefeated and stay retired. I don’t wanna see him be like past legends who continue to fight and getting knocked out against lesser opponents.
Yea inoue got hands
I remember when Julio Gonzalez went to Germany as a underdog to dethrone he undefeated Darius michaelowzky and brought unexpectedly the title to Mexico
And later he lost against roy Jones