How Naoya Inoue walks opponents onto punches

👹 A Monster that truly lives up to his name

Much discourse goes into boxing’s pound for pound rankings. At the time of this writing, there are only three that are legitimately vying for the top spot, two of which are getting the lion’s share of the attention. Those two are Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk. But the third has quietly been building his resume and is also undisputed in two weight classes. That man lurks like a monster in the dark, quietly finishing nearly everyone in his path: Naoya Inoue.

In his fight with Luis Nery, Inoue was dropped in the first round and forced to overcome adversity. He rallied back with a second round knockdown and sixth round finish. The statement had been made and Naoya Inoue was truly the super bantamweight king.

Naoya Inoue making mistakes

The cause of the knockdown from Nery was a very simple problem: Naoya Inoue dropped his left hand. A puncher like Nery will punish that. A puncher like Nery did that.

Naoya Inoue was very keen on the uppercut versus Nery, the southpaw. In the first round, he paid for being careless. (1) Inoue threw the lead uppercut, hoping Nery would be squared up and dip onto the punch. Notice his right hand, however: Low and his chin exposed. Nery capitalizes immediately. (2) Luis Nery throws and lands the left hand as Inoue, who was loading up on the right hook, left him carelessly exposed. Nery had (3) seemingly tamed the monster.

Naoya Inoue has had relatively no resistance aside from Nonito Donaire in their first bout. This knockdown was a reality check and Inoue would snap back to reality really quickly.

To slow down Nery, Inoue would begin to fight the hands. In a mirrored stance matchup, like here with Inoue and Nery, the lead hands are right on top of each other. The general consensus is: the lead hand on top wins the battle.

As you can see, Naoya Inoue wanted fought for his hand on top.

Another weapon from here is the lead left hook. We know Naoya Inoue has a wicked left hook. From parrying down the hand and going to the left hook would pay dividends.

Fixing mistakes

In the very next round, we can see Naoya Inoue fixing his mistakes and making adjustments on his mode of attack. Instead of going forward, the Japanese sensation gets Luis Nery to walk onto his punches. Here’s how…