Naoya Inoue: Meet the best boxer you might not have heard of

CNN —

55,000 fans fall into stunned silence. Naoya Inoue tumbles to the canvas for the first time in his 12-year professional career.

The usually unflappable Japanese boxer looks to have been rattled by Mexico’s Luis Nery.

But, in an act befitting his unbeaten record, Inoue rose from the ground and asserted his typical dominance over Nery, knocking him down in the second and fifth round before finally ending the fight in the sixth.

What was for a brief moment a silent Tokyo Dome erupts as their hometown favorite adds yet another win to his unbeaten record; he is now 27-0 in professional bouts, winning 24 by knockout.

Despite the early scare, Inoue’s victory allowed him to retain his undisputed super bantamweight crown, while also moving him atop The Ring magazine’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings ahead of such luminaries as Oleksandr Usyk, Terence Crawford and Canelo Álvarez.

Although opinions differ on who is in fact the best in the world at the moment, boxing expert Manouk Akopyan calls Inoue the “favorite choice for the boxing aficionado.”

Inoue has been on The Ring’s top-10 pound-for-pound rankings for 366 weeks now, the second most behind Crawford, and he is clearly one of the most accomplished boxers in the world.

So why is he not as well known outside of his native Japan as his contemporaries?

Luis Nery (left) knocks down Inoue in the first round of their super bantamweight boxing title match.

‘Cash cow’

Like many boxers, Inoue’s first forays into boxing took place in his home country. He quickly established himself as a promising prospect in the sport, winning the WBC light flyweight title in just his sixth fight.

Apart from a few select appearances abroad – he fought in Glasgow in 2019 and twice in the