Fighter of the Week (7/24-7/30): Naoya Inoue
On what was most assuredly the hardest week of the year to pick the Fighter of the Week Award winner. The two best Pound for Pound fighters in the world made outstanding bids for Fighter of The Year and Performance of the Year in the same week. A very unusual occurrence. It's even more unusual that someone beats a Pound-for-Pound guy to capture all the belts in one of, if not the toughest divisions in the sport and DOES NOT capture the Fighter of the Week, but that's exactly what happened this week. This Week's award goes to the little man. "The Monster" Naoya Inoue moved up yet another weight class, his fourth which does not include the flyweight division, which he hurdled to capture two of the four belts at super bantamweight. An accomplishment that seemed insane when he captured a Light Flyweight title back in 2014. The Japanese legend has now captured a total of eight total world titles over four weight divisions, has unified his second division, moved his record to 25-0 (22), and seems poised to try his hand at one more division, the Super Featherweight division 126-pounds. A task that seemed absurd just a few years ago.
The opening round was predicted to be telling for both Fulton and the much smaller challenge. It became extraordinarily clear that Fulton did not like the power of the smaller man and was not eager to walk through the storm to get on the inside. Inoue was able to keep Fulton at the midrange throughout the early rounds and surprisingly matched him for hand speed. He won the battle of the jab and seemed to have fully nullified Fulton's offense through the first four rounds. The Philly native needed something drastic in the 5th, and he tried to pick up the pace and had a few good moments with the right hand that landed cleanly, but he was getting tagged in return. Fulton landed a couple of right hands early in the sixth, but that was his last stand as "The Monster" got cooking. Inoue briefly stunned his Philly foe with a left hand late in the stanza, followed by a right hand. Fulton would not go into survival mode and was going to keep pushing. He landed a straight right, but it was met with a short left hook from Inoue. The hometown hero seized the moment, and walked Fulton back into the ropes and unleashed a body shot that wounded the unified champion to end the seventh. A right hand by Inoue to start the eighth had Fulton staggered before a left hook sent him to the canvas inside the opening minute of the round eight. The Philly-tough Fulton beat the count but was already a broken-down fighter at that point. Inoue, a premier finisher, would not be playing with his fit and finished the meal with a blistering flurry of power shots that forced the hand of referee Hector Afu to wave the bout off.
Inoue has long been considered a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He has a legitimate case to in the debate as the very best little men of all time. Despite never getting in with Chocolatito at 115, it can easily be argued the Japanese icon has the best resume. The future looks unclear as he has already cleaned out most of the top names at 118. 122 isn't exactly a murderers row, especially on the Top Rank side. So the jump to the talent-heavy 126-pound division seems reasonable. A showdown with Brandon Figueroa should he get by Rey Vargas, would be an all-time epic scrap. It would be extremely difficult to make but extremely competitive a 50/50 type of fight. Additionally, 126 has a load of talent Robeisey Ramirez and Luis Alberto Lopez are both world champions on the Top Rank side and would make an extremely compelling fight. There's also the fantasy catchweight match-up with Vasyl Lomachenko. All of these fights, including the Loma fight, are not out of reach for The Monster, who has moved up in weight as seamlessly as Pacquiao did over a decade ago.
