Inoue’s cunning move

Manila Times - Oct 22, 2026

THE battle between Japanese superstar Naoya “The Monster” Inoue and unbeaten American Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez for the undisputed junior featherweight or super bantamweight (122 pounds) championship is being touted as one of the biggest fights next year. Undisputed (WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF) junior featherweight champ Inoue, 33-0 with 27 knockouts, is considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in boxing today. San Antonio, Texas native Rodriguez, 24-0 with 17 knockouts, is not that far behind Inoue in the pound-for-pound list. Rodriguez had won titles in the junior bantamweight (115 pounds), flyweight (112 pounds), and bantamweight (118 pounds). An Inoue-Rodriguez fight came within the realm of reality in June, when Rodriguez moved up in weight and won the WBA bantamweight (118 pounds) championship with a sixth round knockout of Antonio Vargas. With Rodriguez successfully bulking up to 118 pounds, he is now just four pounds shy of making the 122-pound, junior featherweight limit where Inoue reigns as the undisputed king. Saudi financier Turki Alalshikh, the man behind the Riyadh Boxing Season, wants the Inoue-Rodriguez fight to happen as early as January 2027 in Tokyo or Nagoya, Japan. However, just as the clamor for the matchup is reaching feverish levels, Inoue inexplicably announced recently that he is...

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