By Chris Williams: Bantamweight champions Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue and Nonito Donaire met for their press conference on Friday ahead of next Tuesday’s rematch at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
Waiting three years to make this rematch was dumb, dumb, and dumb. Donaire is now 39-years-old, and Inoue’s popularity in the U.S is nowhere due to three years of weak match-making against dreadful opposition for the Japanese star.
Surprisingly, there is zero buzz for the Inoue vs. Donaire 2 rematch, and it’s disappointing that this fight should be creating massive interest.
Three years ago when Inoue (22-0, 19 KOs) and Donaire fought in November 2019, there was massive interest from the boxing world, but not this time.
You can argue that the promoters for the Inoue vs. Donaire fight made a tremendous mistake by not scheduling the rematch in the first quarter of 2020 while the interest was still high among boxing fans.
Now three years later, the 29-year-old Inoue has badly hurt his popularity by fighting three lackluster opponents that have done zero for his career in fights that were ignored by the U.S boxing public.
It’s unclear why Inoue’s management chose to match him weakly and not put him back in with Donaire, but that was their decision.
Inoue’s last three fights:
- Aran Dipaen
- Michael Dasmariñas
- Jason Moloney
What a waste of three years for Inoue. If Chris Williams was the captain of Inoue’s ship, he would have had him fight these three fighters since 2019:
- Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez
- Juan Francisco Estrada
- Nonito Donaire
The difference in Inoue’s popularity after fighting those three stars compared to the poor sublevel cannon fodder that he’s dined on since 2019 is huge.
In boxing, you can’t turn a fighter into a star when you match them against junk opposition. It doesn’t work, and obviously, it hasn’t worked for Inoue.
Hence, we’re four days away from Inoue’s rematch with the 39-year-old Donaire and virtually NO one is talking about their fight, which is a much more compelling match on paper than this Sunday’s undisputed lightweight clash between George Kambosos Jr. and Devin Haney.
“This is the biggest fight of my career. This is the road to the undisputed,” said Donaire about his rematch with Inoue. “My motivation is the highest it’s been in boxing.
“Naoya is the best fighter in the division, and that’s something I’m claiming by defeating him. That’s one thing going through my mind, ‘I am the undisputed.’ That’s something that goes through my head. I am the best.
“In the next four days, that’s all I’m saying is, ‘I am the best,'” said Donaire. “It’s very exciting because I know the guy in front of me is a tremendous fighter, so it’s very fun.
“The last time, I had so much fun, and we’re going to have a lot of fun in this fight. This is a fight that I’ve been aiming for to accomplish everything that I’ve not accomplished in boxing. This is the road to undisputed,” said Donaire.
