Promoter Bob Arum on Thursday praised undisputed super middleweight champion Naoya Inoue, saying the Mexican great was a huge star in the United States from the early 1980s until his tragic death in a car accident in August 1982. He was compared to martial artist Salvador Sanchez.
Knockouts are flashy, but restarts are important
Arum feels the difference between the 31-year-old “monster” Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs) and Salvador Sanchez is that the Japanese star knocks out most opponents.
The level of opponents Inoue has fought against is astonishing when compared to the legendary fighters that boxing great Salvador Sanchez fought.
When he died at the age of 23, he was already fighting far more talented fighters than Inoue ever wanted to fight. Salvador's courage and ambition were on a different level than what I had seen from Inoue.
That wasn't the case for Sanchez (44-1-1, 32 KOs), who lost to little-known fighter Antonio Becerra early in his career and drew with another little-known fighter, Juan Escobar.
Sanchez fought much better opponents than Inoue throughout his career and had more matches than Sanchez at the time of his death at the age of 23. Inoue is eight years older at 31 and has played fewer games than Sanchez's 46. He has no comparison.
Inoue's carefully selected path
Inoue has fought mostly average fighters throughout his career, but the best he's ever fought is 40-year-old Nonito Donaire, who gave him hell in his first fight. No doubt, the younger Donaire would have mopped the floor with Inoue.
Naoya Inoue's best fights:
Nonito Donaire: *40 years old
stephen fulton
Marlon Tapales
emmanuel rodriguez
Jason Moloney
Salvador Sanchez's best fights:
Azma Nelson
Wilfredo Gomez
Ruben Castillo
Danny “Little Red” Lopez
Juan Laporte
Felix Trinidad Sr.
patrick ford
Alm's selective memory
“What I'm seeing is scary. He overwhelms his opponents, who are really good opponents. I've never seen a fighter of that size perform like he does,” said promoter Bob. Arum spoke on the YouTube site FightHub TV about “Monster” Naoya Inoue, who he promotes with his company Top Rank.
“Maybe Salvador Sanchez had that ability, but he still didn't win all his fights by knockout. Inoue goes into the fight, boxes his opponent, and knocks him out.”
Neri's disagreement
Inoue will defend his undisputed super bantamweight title (35-1, 27 KOs) against Luis Neri on May 6th at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Many boxing fans have criticized the fight, as Nelly lost by knockout in the seventh round to Brandon Figueroa in 2020. Since then, Nelly has competed exclusively in scrubs and has won his last four fights.
Inoue's decision to stay at No. 122 was due to his fear of moving up to featherweight to fight the lurking powerhouses in his weight class such as Luis Alberto López, Raymond Ford, Rey Vargas, Rafael Espinoza, and LoBaci Ramirez. Some people see it as a sign of their presence.
