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Naoya Inoue’s right cheek quivered as he stared into Luis Nery’s soul.
Both fighters were inside the divisional limit for their RING and undisputed 122-pound championship. Inoue was 121¾ pounds ahead of his first defense as undisputed king and second overall title defense at the weight. Tijuana’s Nery was well under the mark at 120.8 pounds in a bid to become a two-time RING champion.
Their bout headlines a four-title fight show this Monday on ESPN+ and Amazon Prime-Japan from the Tokyo Dome. It marks the first boxing event at the famed venue since Buster Douglas’ historic March 1990 upset of Mike Tyson.
For Nery (35-1, 27 knockouts), it’s a chance at redemption in a country where he was previously banned to box. He badly blew weight ahead of a March 2018 knockout win over Shinsuke Yamanaka at Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo. The rematch came seven months after Nery dethroned a then-unbeaten Yamanaka for the WBC and Ring crown in Kyoto.
Nery, No. 2 at 122, was issued an indefinite suspension, which was lifted earlier this year.
There is no question the overturned verdict came as an effort to satisfy a hit list item for the nation’s best fighter.
Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs), No. 2 pound-for-pound, was determined for Nery to be his first challenger of 2024. Talks were underway even before he defeated Marlon Tapales to fully unify the 122-pound division. The knockout win saw Inoue become Japan’s first-ever two-division undisputed champion, a feat he accomplished in just 54 weeks.
The unbeaten 31-year-old from Yokohama previously held titles at 108, 115 and 118. He fully unified the bantamweight division by the end of 2022 before he moved up in weight to conquer junior featherweight.
Nery has won four straight, including three consecutive stoppage victories. Included among the bunch is his eleventh-round knockout of Azat Hovhannisyan last February. Their thriller was a top runner-up for 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 a senior writer for The Ring and vice president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
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