{"id":936190,"date":"2026-05-04T02:31:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T02:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/936190\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T02:31:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T02:31:19","slug":"naoya-inoue-lined-up-for-super-fight-in-january-with-unique-belt-up-for-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/936190\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue lined-up for ‘super fight’ in January with unique belt up for grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naoya Inoue and Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez are being lined-up for a super fight in January.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inoue moved to 33-0 on Saturday with a convincing unanimous decision victory<\/a> over Junto Nakatani.<\/p>\n

\"Naoya<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Inoue is currently the undisputed super bantamweight championCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

It was the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history and took place at a packed out Tokyo Dome.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old retained his undisputed super-bantamweight title<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n

Following this fight, The Ring reports<\/a> that Turki Alalshikh wants to make Inoue vs Rodriguez for January in Japan.<\/p>\n

Inoue would defend his 122lbs Ring Magazine championship against The Ring champion at 115.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more on boxing<\/p>\n

It would also pit the number two and number four pound-for-pound fighters in the world.<\/p>\n

The report also adds that a special-edition Ring Magazine belt will be designed for the super fight.<\/p>\n

The aim is to also host it in a stadium to break the Japanese attendance record.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez, however, first will need to get through his fight on June 13 in Arizona.<\/p>\n

He will debut at 118lbs against Antonio Vargas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that fight was presented to me now, I\u2019d definitely go and take it,\u201d Rodriguez said on a recent episode of the Mr. Verzace Podcast. <\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Hearn has guided Rodriguez throughout his career so farCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cI think me against Inoue would definitely be one of the biggest fights in the lower weight divisions.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2026 I love going to Japan anyways so if I were to fight out there for the first time, that would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearn confirms<\/p>\n

Matchroom chief Eddie Hearn<\/a> has confirmed that it is a fight that Alalshikh wants to make and underlined how huge it would be.<\/p>\n

Hearn has recently signed Rodriguez to a new contract<\/a> as he prepares for a new world title shot.<\/p>\n

He said: “When we were making the AJ Fury fight, we were at Tottenham, Netflix, everybody was in the room and Turki said ‘I want to make Inoue against Bam’ and I said ‘sign us up’. <\/p>\n

“Look, there’s no contracts, nothing like that. But who else is he going to fight?<\/p>\n

“Unless he moves to 126 and even if he moves to 126, who’s he going to fight? <\/p>\n

Read More on talkSPORT<\/p>\n

“If Usyk retires or gets out of the way, you’ve got number one against number two, pound for pound, fighting each other. It’s a massive fight.<\/p>\n

“It’s an amazing fight and I believe Bam wins, I really do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue and Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez are being lined-up for a super fight in January. Inoue moved to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,60222,261673,7177,79,10171,261672,16,15],"class_list":["post-936190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-inoue","tag-jesse-bam-rodriguez","tag-naoya-inoue","tag-sports","tag-the-ring","tag-the-ring-belt","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116513963731701553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}