By Jim Dower: Sporting a huge size advantage over WBO super flyweight champion Omar Narvaez (43-2-2, 23 KOs), #8 WBO Naoya Inoue (8-0, 7 KOs) of Japan destroyed the 39-year-old Narvaez by a 2nd round knockout on Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Gym, in Tokyo, Japan.
The 21-year-old Inoue, who appeared to be at least one or two divisions heavier than Narvaez in the ring, knocked Narvaez down four times before the fight was halted at 3:01 of the 2nd round after Inoue dropped Narvaez with a hard left to the body. Narvaez was too hurt to get up from the knockdown and was counted out by referee Lou Moret.
In the 1st round, Inoue knocked Narvaez down with a looping right hand to the head. Later in the round, Inoue caught Narvaez with a short left hook that put him down on the canvas.
In the 2nd round, Inoue caught Narvaez with a left hook to the head that dropped him. A short time later, Inoue finished Narvaez off with a left to the body that put him down for the count.
Narvaez was using a lot of movement in the 2nd round in an effort to survive, but he was still trying to engage with the much bigger Inoue. It was too early in the fight for Narvaez to be engaging a guy with this kind of size, power and youth, and he should have waited.
Normally, Narvaez is a very good defensive fighter when he goes into his shell like he did in his fight against the bigger Nonito Donaire, who was a bantamweight at the time, had similar size as Inoue. Narvaez, 5’2”, was just too small for both Donaire and Inoue. The Japanese fighter won the fight on size alone because he was far too big for Narvaez.
Narvaez has the talent to win another world title at super flyweight, but he’s got to make sure he’s not facing guys that are much bigger than him like Inoue was. Narvaez can’t compete against fighters of this size because he was giving up too much height, reach, power and likely a lot of weight.
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