“He Ain’t Fought a Top Fighter”: Former Light-Heavyweight Champion Gets Angry as No.1 Pound-for-Pound Debate Sparks Between Naoya Inoue and Terence Crawford

Naoya Inoue gets another knockout victory under his belt. The Japanese boxer has captivated the boxing world with impeccable skills and most importantly, his unbelievable power. The undefeated boxer has 26 victories and 23 of them come via knockouts, giving him an 88% knockout ratio, which is nothing to scoff at. Moreover, this year, he has legitimized himself by becoming an undisputed champion champion and defeating the likes of Marlon Tapales and Stephen Fulton.

However, despite such impressive accolades and resumes, the boxer has failed to impress a former lightweight champion. Who is this boxer and what does he have to suggest?

Naoya Inoue fails to impress a former champion

The former light-heavyweight champion is none other than Antonio Tarver. The American boxer had a celebrated career that lasted for decades and retired with an impressive record of 31 victories and six defeats. Moreover, in a recent tweet, he noticed that as per show buzz rankings, Inoue is the pound-for-pound best fighter, over and above Terence Crawford. This irked the retired boxer to a great extent.

According to him, the undefeated boxer has not competed against formidable opponents and does not find much talent in the lower-weight divisions. By extension, he asserted that his resume cannot be compared with Crawford’s so long as the welterweight champion remains undefeated. Reflecting on the same, he tweeted, “Answer me this how many P4P champions has he defeated? He ain’t fought a top fighter and those lighter divisions with no real names in them can’t count as mush as the glamour divisions where top fighters are known to rome.”

He adds, “He’s in the top #10 and until someone defeats @tbudcrawford he’s the #P4P Champ stop playing with his name and his brand build Inoue name off his fights not off the #P4P discussions!!” Safe to say that Traver does not consider Inoue to be the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Moreover, it bears a mention that the Japanese boxer has been subject to scrutiny not just from Traver. 

Inoue gets called out by a boxing presenter

Boxing presenter, Dev Sahni asserted that the next fight for Inoue should be against British & European Super Bantamweight champion Liam Davies. However, at the same time, he anticipated that Inoue would not call him out after his win. This irked Sahni who took to X. and asserted that the undefeated lacks ambition. He stated, “No great surprise there. Naoya Inoue will never win the British & European Super Bantamweight titles from Liam Davies with this lack of ambition. Also key sounded like he was avoiding Nick Ball at featherweight towards the end of the interview but I’ll let that slide.”

Read more: “No Great Surprise There”: Despite His Recent Win, Boxing Presenter Details Reason Why Naoya Inoue Will “Never Win” Any European or British Super-Bantamweight Title