Naoya Inoue's right cheek trembled as he stared at Luis Nery's soul.
Both fighters were within the division limit of their RING and undisputed 122-pound championships. Inoue was 121¾ pounds before his first defense as the undisputed champion and second title defense at the weight. Tijuana's Nery weighed in at 120.8 pounds in an attempt to become a two-time RING champion.
Their fight headlines a four-title fight this Monday on ESPN+ and Amazon Prime-Japan from the Tokyo Dome. It marks the first boxing event at the prestigious venue since Buster Douglas' March 1990 upset of Mike Tyson.
For Nery (35-1, 27 knockouts), it is a chance for redemption in a country where he was banned from boxing. He blew up in weight before winning in March 2018 against Shinsuke Yamanaka at the Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo. The rematch took place seven months after Nery knocked out the then-undefeated Yamanaka for the WBC and Ring crowns in Kyoto.
Nery, number 2 at 122, was given an indefinite ban, which was lifted earlier this year.
There is no doubt that the repealed decision came as an attempt to satisfy the war-torn list of the nation.
Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs), No. 2 pound-for-pound, he was determined to make Nery his first challenge of 2024. Negotiations continued even before he defeated Marlon Tapales to fully integrate the 122-pound division. The knockout win made Inoue Japan's first ever undisputed two-division champion, a feat he accomplished in just 54 weeks.
The unbeaten 31-year-old from Yokohama held titles at 108, 115 and 118. He fully integrated the bantamweight division at the end of 2022 before moving up in weight to win junior featherweight.
Nery has won four in a row, including a three-game winning streak. Included in the group is his eleventh round victory over Azat Hovhannisyan last February. Their fun was the runner-up in the 2023 Fight of the Year.
Below are the weights for the other three title fights.
Jason Moloney (27-2, 19 KOs), New South Wales, Australia, 117 ¾ pounds
Yoshiki Takei (8-0, 8 KOs), Yokohama, Japan, 117 ¾ pounds
12 rounds, for Moloney's WBO bantamweight title
Takuma Inoue (19-1, 5 KOs), Yokohama, 117 ¾ pounds
Sho Ishida (34-3, 17 KOs), Osaka, Japan, 117 ¾ pounds
12 rounds, for Inoue's WBA bantamweight title
Seigo Yuri Akui (19-2-1, 11 KOs), Kurashiki, Japan, 111 ¾ pounds
Taku Kuwahara (13-1, 8 KOs), Yokohama, 111 ¾ pounds
12 rounds, for Akui's WBA flyweight title
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for The Ring and vice president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘
fbq(‘init’, ‘161022561146884’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10&appId=128026463954740”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source link
