<figure id="attachment_281811" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-281811" style="width: 4373px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="bf7b233c"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/12/221213FD-002.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-281811" class="wp-caption-text">Naoya Inoue finished Butler in the 11th round after he refused to strike properly (photo by Hiroo Yamaguchi).</figcaption></figure>
 Inoue dominated the WBO champion from start to finish. Inoue dominated the WBO champion from start to finish. Inoue is truly a Beast. Very good!　He is a complete fighter. He no longer has an opponent at 118 pounds. It&#8217;s no wonder he&#8217;s moving up the ranks.&#8221;
 Tim Withaspoon, who won the WBC and WBA heavyweight titles in 1984 and 1986, will celebrate his 65th birthday on December 27, and who lives in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, with his 12-year-old daughter, saw the recent Naoya Inoue vs.
 Butler couldn&#8217;t do anything. Butler couldn&#8217;t do anything. He knew that if he went forward, he would fall prey to Inoue&#8217;s fists. He was scared. I think he felt that if he kept his cards high and hung in there like that, he could find a way to come out of it somewhere in the 12th round. It didn&#8217;t work out that way. Even though it was champion vs. champion, things are different. There is no comparison in terms of technique, speed, or mental capacity. However, it is true that the WBO champion&#8217;s will not to fall allowed the fight to go to the 11th round. Inouye would have liked to have finished him in the earlier rounds.&#8221;
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 Witherspoon continued, assuming that Inoue will fight bigger and stronger men in the future.
 Inoue is a defensive fighter like that, and body blows are effective against him. In this case, Inoue probably landed the finishing blow with a right hand to the body. Inouye can hit fast combinations and rarely strikes out. He is a quality fighter. He hit a left body uppercut early on, but if he could have taken a half step further, the knockout would have been quicker. He needs to use more head slips to get in his opponent&#8217;s pocket and go for the liver. If he learns to do this, he will live up to his strengths more. Straight right hand and left hook early on. He showed a few attacks like one-two, left hook, but he should learn to change angles and vary his combinations. You are already strong enough, but as you move up in class, your opponent&#8217;s body will get bigger and his punching power will increase. In boxing, you risk losing everything with a single punch,&#8230;&#8230; and I&#8217;ve seen a lot of fighters like that. Even if he moves up to super bantam, I hope he continues to fight without getting punched.&#8221;
<figure id="attachment_282701" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-282701" style="width: 1146px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="872b6066"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/12/IMG_0227-1.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-282701" class="wp-caption-text"> At the gym run by his son (photo by the author)</figcaption></figure>
 In the pound-for-pound rankings released by ESPN, the U.S. sports channel, on December 21 this year, Naoya Inoue was ranked second behind WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford, and was an impressive No. 1 on CBS. When Withaspoon was still active, it was unthinkable that a Japanese fighter&#8217;s name would be mentioned here.
 Some people say it&#8217;s not worth it because it&#8217;s a debate between world champions who never fight each other. Who is stronger, Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson? It&#8217;s like that. Well, that&#8217;s a question that will never be answered. But if pound-for-pound is one of the motivators for the fighters, that&#8217;s fine with me. If Inouye is ranked No. 2 at this point, there is a possibility that he will be No. 1 in the future like CBS. I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if some people claim he is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He is at least one of the top three best fighters in the world. I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if one day a Japanese fighter becomes the best fighter in the world. The clock is ticking.
 Witherspoon was most interested in promoting Naoya Inoue.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Pinning 90% of fight money"></div>
I&#8217;ve played three games in the U.S. so far, right? You don&#8217;t want to expand over here in earnest? 　The promoter is Bob Allam, right? It is certainly difficult for a lightweight fighter to gain popularity in the U.S., but Inouye can get as many fans as he wants. But Inouye can get as many fans as he wants. He has the ability to do so. It all depends on matchmaking. He has to fight fights with fighters who will be talked about and who are strong. Promoters will not take Inouye lightly because he has such a winning record.
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 No other world champion has had promoters cry as loudly as Witherspoon. Although he won the world heavyweight title twice, he was not given fights unless he signed a blank contract. He also had to sign a blank contract to get fights. In some cases, as much as 90% of the money was taken by unscrupulous promoters. Witherspoon was unable to build a long-term regime because he was unable to find an environment in which he could concentrate on boxing, and he became desperate. He entered the ring out of inertia and lost the belt to a lower-ranked fighter.
 Still, he stayed in the ring until the age of 45 because he saw no other way to make money. In his later years as a fighter, Withaspoon told me, &#8220;Even though I was world champion, I was just a slave.
 A fighter does not succeed only by being strong. A fighter cannot be successful only by being strong, but only by having a good manager and a good promoter, who can give him wealth and honor. Inouye has already achieved superstar status in Japan. But since he is such a champion, he can become a big name in the world like Manny Pacquiao. No, I hope he does.
 Pacquiao also rose to stardom under Bob Arum, right? Pacquiao built a mountain of KOs while moving around the ring in a big way. Inouye can push his opponents without using the ring wider than Pacquiao. Also, Pacquiao&#8217;s attacks were straight lefts in both one and two ways. First, he hit cleanly with a straight left hand, which led to his next attack. Inouye could take him down with any punch, left or right. I think he has more attack patterns than Pacquiao.&#8221;
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Withaspoon was born and raised, is also home to current WBC/WBO super bantamweight champion Stephen Fulton, 28, who has won all 21 of his fights with eight KOs and is rumored to be moving up to featherweight, but an Inoue fight may be in the works.
 I&#8217;ve known the guy for a long time, so it&#8217;s hard to answer the question of who has the advantage over Inoue. He is a quiet and serious guy. But if the fight against Inouye is decided, Fulton will consider it the biggest fight of his life, and he will prepare for it like never before. I&#8217;ll make sure I&#8217;m in the best shape I can be. It goes without saying that I&#8217;ll be on the lookout for Inouye,&#8221; Witherspoon concluded.
 Witherspoon concluded.
 I can&#8217;t wait to see what kind of a beast Inouye is going to be. Inoue will have a hard time finding sparring partners in Japan. He will definitely grow more if he comes to the U.S. He should make the U.S. his main battleground. He should make the U.S. his main battleground. It would be interesting for him to set up camp in Philadelphia. It&#8217;s a historical boxing town, so there are many good training partners.
 What kind of new chapter will Naoya Inoue color in 2023? His rapid progress is likely to accelerate.
<figure id="attachment_281815" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-281815" style="width: 1130px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a4b1d455"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/12/IMG_0226.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-281815" class="wp-caption-text"> Former world heavyweight champ Tim Witherspoon is interviewed at his home where he lives with his daughter (photo by the author).</figcaption></figure>
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 Born in 1969. Passed the professional boxing test as a junior lightweight, but suffered an injury to his left elbow. After working as a reporter for a weekly magazine, he became a nonfiction writer and educator, teaching at a public high school in the U.S. In 1996, he moved to the U.S. He graduated from the University of Tokyo's Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies in 2014. He is the author of "Minority Fist," "America's Lower Level Education Site," and "America's Problem Child Regeneration Classroom" (all Kobunsha e-books), "God's Ring," "The Door to the World: Forward! Samurai Blue" and "Hohoite to Nurture Coaching" (all published by Kodansha).

 Soichi Hayashi

 Hiroaki Yamaguchi (Naoya Inoue)

 Naoya Inoue, who unified the four bantamweight divisions. The former WBA and WBC heavyweight champion sends his encouragement to the monster who will challenge the super bantamweight division next year.

Former World Heavyweight Champion Says to Naoya Inoue: “Inoue is the Beast” – “Pacquiao is more than just Pacquiao.

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