Bob Arum has big plans for Naoya Inoue in 2025 and wants to end it by involving him in the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
Inoue is one of the best pound-for-pound boxers right now and is an undisputed world champion in two weight classes.
The Japanese superstar has all four belts at bantamweight and super-bantamweight and continued his run of winning every fight via knockout since 2019.
He now has a big calendar year coming up and the Top Rank promoter Arum is planning to take Inoue to the next level.
Naoya Inoue to face Sam Goodman in rearranged title defence
First on the list for Naoya Inoue is his rearranged title defense against Australian Sam Goodman.
The two were originally meant to go up against each other on 24 December but Goodman was forced to postpone and rearrange the Inoue fight because of a cut eye.
They will now face each other on 24 January at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
Should Inoue maintain his unbeaten record, Top Rank plan to bring the Japanese star to the USA for a fight in April, with an Alan David Picasso fight the most likely.
Arum said: “The December 24 [fight against Goodman] is now going to be held on January 24 so that’s done, written in stone.
“And then after that fight we expect to bring Inoue to the United States to fight in Las Vegas against this Mexican fighter named Picasso. Which we’re going to have a lot of fun with. He’s a good fighter, Picasso.”
Naoya Inoue to be involved in Japan’s biggest boxing fight of all time
There are plenty of candidates who would dream of fighting Inoue but the ultimate aim is to create the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
Junto Nakatani, the WBC bantamweight champion is facing David Cuellar on 24 February and is the leading candidate to face the the pound-for-pound.
As well as bringing Inoue to the US, Arum also wants to bring Nakatani to fight on the same card with a view to them facing each other at the Tokyo Dome towards the back end of the year for the 122lbs title.
“It is rare and from what I’ve been told by (Hideyuki) Ohashi, the manager, promoter of Inoue and (Akihiko) Honda, our friend Honda who is the co-promoter with us of Nakantani,” Arum told Dan Rafael.
“Inoue-Nakatani will be by far the biggest fight in the history of Japan and they would put it in the Tokyo Dome which is in itself fairly rare.”