By Gav Duthie: It takes a lot for smaller fighters to get themselves noticed on the world scene but thats exactly what Japan’s Naoya Inoue 9-0 (8) did little over a year ago on 30 December 2014. He captured the WBO Super Flyweight beating top fighter Omar Andres Narvaez to add to the WBC title he had won before in only his 8th fight.
A year on and he has fought only once against a game but out of his depth Warlito Parrenas 24-7-1 (21) a few days ago. There was hope after the Narvaez fight that a super fight could be made with Flyweight champion and pound for pound star Roman Gonzalez but this year has been rather pointless for the Japanese star they call ‘Monster’.
Inoue v Narvaez
Okay, so he might have got the now 40-year-old Narvaez at the right time but the Argentine was still a great fighter. He was a two-weight world champion at flyweight and super flyweight, a two-time Olympian and his only defeat previously was a 12 round decision against legend Nonito Donaire when he challenged for his third weight world title at Bantamweight. Inoue, aged just 21 destroyed Narvaez showing a perfect blend of speed, range, power and poise stopping him in just 2 rounds. He was destined for great things, he still is but his promoters are destroying him with inactivity and rubbish fights.
Inoue v Parrenas
Inoue stopped the Filipino fighter on 29 Dec 2015, 364 days after the Narvaez fight. For a 22-year-old champion this is a lot of inactivity and an absolutely pointless fight. It was another second round win and basically routine. Boxrec rates Parrenas just outside the top 25 in the division and he has now been stopped 5 times so what was the point in this.
The future
To stay in the public consciousness Inoue needs to unify the division against the likes of Carlos Cuadras 34-0-1(26), Zolani Tete 22-3(18) or Kohei Kono 31-8-1(13) or at least remain more active. It has been a long time since the last low weight super fight between Ricardo Lopez and Rosendo Alvarez in 1998. Hopefully in another year from now Inoue hasn’t only fought once more against a poor opponent. These divisions need good promoters and Roman Gonzalez needs big fights against the likes of Inoue to cement his pound for pound status. Hopefully 2016 will be much more fruitful.
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