Naoya Inoue outboxed Junto Nakatani on Saturday to retain his undisputed super-bantamweight titles and reaffirm his position amongst boxing’s best, but in the eyes of Devin Haney, there is another fighter who deserves top spot in the pound-for-pound rankings.
In a technical affair, Inoue landed the cleaner shots to claim a unanimous decision win and hand Nakatani a first career defeat; that being a seventh consecutive defence of all four marbles in the 122lb division and undeniably a career-best win.
As a result, many fans now view Inoue as the new number one on the pound-for-pound list, with former undisputed cruiserweight and heavyweight ruler Oleksandr Usyk consequently dropped down to second place despite remarkable wins in both of those divisions.
Speaking on Inside The Ring, reigning WBO welterweight world champion Haney disagreed with that decision, believing that Inoue’s win over Nakatani is not enough to displace the Ukrainian.
“That [list] is some BS man. I think [that] Usyk [is still number one].”
“Think about it like this, Nakatani had a hard fight with the guy that he fought last, [Sebastian] Hernandez… we don’t even know him.”
It is now being reported that Inoue will target another major event in the autumn, his last at super-bantamweight, potentially facing off with unified super-flyweight world champion Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez, who is also highly ranked in many pound-for-pound ratings.
Before a possible clash against Inoue can take place, Rodriguez first moves up to bantamweight to challenge WBA champion Antonio Vargas on June 13 in Glendale, Arizona.
