2024 Sports Scenes】Naoya Inoue: “The Power of a Champion” shown at the Super Bantamweight Unification Bout between the 4 World Bantamweight Teams

Pre-match “strange” and “first down of his career

In the decisive moment, Naoya Inoue raised his golden right arm powerfully.

In his 22nd world fight, a super bantamweight unification bout (May 6, 2012), Inoue exploded with emotion after submitting his difficult opponent, Luis Neri (30), in 1:22 of the 6th round. It was the first big match for a Japanese fighter at the Tokyo Dome, but even more significant was the first “down” of his career.

At 1:40 of the 1st round, Neri’s left hook caught Inoue in the face. Nonfiction writer Soichi Hayashi, author of “Fist of Minority” and other books, observed that moment as follows.

There was something strange before the fight. He was probably feeling nervous because he was about to fight in front of more than 40,000 spectators. Nevertheless, after going down, I used a good amount of time to make it to count of eight. I handled the fight calmly and composedly.

From the second round onward, the fight was a masterpiece.

The only clean hit was the one that put him down. I showed my ability to learn how to recognize and respond to the trajectory of punches in a short period of time. The finishing blow was a right uppercut followed by a straight right hand. WBC bantamweight champion Jyunjin Nakatani, whom I previously interviewed, said, “It is very difficult to land a series of punches from the same right hand, but he hit it exactly right. His extraordinary boxing IQ and adaptability are unmatched. I can only take my hat off to his extraordinary boxing IQ and adaptability.

The experience of the great upset must have made the absolute champion grow up one step more.