Naoya Inoue

Naoya Inoue, born on April 10, 1993, in Zama, Kanagawa, Japan, is a highly respected professional boxer. Nicknamed "The Monster," Inoue is a three-division world champion and was the undisputed bantamweight world champion, holding the WBA (Super), IBF, Ring magazine titles between 2019 and January 2023, and the WBC and WBO titles between 2022 and January 2023.

Inoue’s boxing journey began in his amateur career, where he won the Japanese Interscholastic Athletic Meeting and the Japanese Junior National Championships in 2009. He turned professional in 2012, signing with Ohashi Boxing Gym. His professional debut was a victory against Filipino national champion Crison Omayao, and he quickly climbed the ranks, winning multiple titles in different weight classes. Some of his key career highlights include winning the WBC light flyweight title in his sixth professional bout, capturing the WBO junior bantamweight title, and becoming the undisputed bantamweight world champion. Inoue's performance in the ring continued to impress throughout 2021, with highly anticipated and well-executed victories over Michael Dasmariñas and Aran Dipaen.

Naoya Inoue, one year after achieving the unprecedented feat of becoming the first four-belt, undisputed champion in bantamweight history, the pound-for-pound great elevated himself to even rarer air in the sport. Following in the footsteps of Terence Crawford, Inoue became one of the only boxers to attain undisputed status in a second weight class. The controversy surrounding Inoue’s potential resurgence as the P4P king arises in the aftermath of Crawford’s destructive display against unified welterweight king Errol Spence Jr. The power shots connected by Inoue in this historic journey displayed an overwhelming margin of 24 to 5, further solidifying his stature in the realm of pound-for-pound greatness.

Naoya Inoue has built himself an impressive resume thanks to his solid basic fundamental boxing mixed with explosive punching power. Like many other boxers, Inoue’s game starts with the jab. He is excellent at snapping the jab without telegraphing it and stepping over to his left to create an angle for follow-up punches. One of Inoue’s signature tricks is to feint his jab to get his opponent to react so that he can follow up with a straight right or overhand right on the opening. Another signature trick of Inoue is to set up his lead left hook off of his jab. He can create a lot of power from this combination due to him transferring his weight from his rear leg to his front leg to create power in his jab, then while his weight is on his lead leg, he transfers it back to his rear leg to create power in his hook. Inoue is also a user of the high guard defense, and while this defense is often looked at as a flawed form of defense compared to others such as the Philly Shell, Inoue has many tricks to utilize the high guard’s best strengths. One of his tricks is will raise his high guard in punching range. What this does is it makes his opponent think he won’t attack and is just looking to defend. This in turn makes his opponent lower their defense to set up an attack. Just before they attack, Inoue will spring his own attack and catch them off guard. From overhand rights to right uppercuts to 1-2 combinations, Inoue often lands many power punches from this trap.