A world featherweight champion believes his marketing potential in Japan could be enough to secure a lucrative showdown with Naoya Inoue.
The undisputed super-bantamweight king is seemingly considering his options after defeating Junto Nakatani, and retaining his four world titles, earlier this month.
It was a classy performance that saw Inoue claim a unanimous decision victory, with fans now clamouring for him to face unified super-flyweight king Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez.
In Rodriguez’s next outing, against WBA titlist Antonio Vargas on June 13, the 26-year-old will move up to 118lbs and attempt to become a three-weight world champion.
After that, it is highly likely that ‘Bam’ will represent the frontrunner to face Inoue, who has said he will remain at 122lbs for one more fight and then move up to featherweight before retirement.
If and when he does move up to 126lbs, ‘The Monster’ would almost certainly jump straight into a world title fight with one of the four champions.
One of whom is Angelo Leo, the IBF champion, who believes he has an edge over Bruce Carrington, Rafael Espinoza and Brandon Figueroa.
This is because the American has already made an impression on Japanese fight fans, with his last outing ending in a majority decision victory over Tomoki Kameda in Osaka, Japan.
At the same time, though, Leo has admitted to FightHype that he may need to unify the 126lb division in order to secure the potential Inoue fight.
“I wouldn’t put it past [Inoue to choose] me to fight first at featherweight, just because I already have an established name out there in Japan.
“But I think a unification fight would probably be the best bet.”
With Leo’s IBF title defence against Ra’eese Aleem falling through earlier this month, the 32-year-old has not fought since defeating Kameda in May 2025.
