By Elliot Worsell
NOT content with beating a couple of fellow belt-holders in 2023, there is now every chance Naoya Inoue, the world’s number one super-bantamweight, could be fighting Luis Nery, a dangerous former champion at 122 pounds, in May 2024.
That’s according to ESPN, who say that Inoue, 26-0 (23), and Nery, 35-1 (27), have agreed to a fight in Tokyo, with Inoue’s undisputed title on the line. They also state that Nery’s (life) ban from competing in Japan due to past transgressions (missing weight and a doping violation) will not be an issue in terms of ensuring the fight happens. How that can be so is not entirely clear at this point (this is boxing, remember), but regardless, a fight between Inoue and Nery, wherever it happens, is exactly what the doctor ordered.
From Inoue’s point of view, there can be no better challenge. After all, with impressive wins over Stephen Fulton and Marlon Tapales now behind him, and with their belts ripped from them like they were his all along, the immediate worry was that Inoue would soon run out of decent opponents and be forced in search of them to jump up yet another weight class (to featherweight). In Nery, however, he finds an opponent who is not only dangerous – arguably the most dangerous opponent he has faced to date – but a natural super-bantamweight, someone whose first world title was in fact secured down at bantamweight.
Indeed, Nery won that WBC bantamweight belt with a fourth-round stoppage of Shinsuke Yamanaka, another Japanese fighter, in Kyoto in 2017. It was deemed a breakout performance at the time only for Nery to later test positive for zilpaterol, a banned substance, and undo all his good work. As they all do, the Mexican had an excuse for the boo-boo, blaming it on food contamination, but most in boxing had very little sympathy for him around that time. In fact, it was only the WBC who believed Nery. They ruled on October 31 of that year, some two months after the fight, that the test could be explained away with the contaminated food excuse and therefore allowed the result of the fight to still stand. They then ordered a rematch between Nery and Yamanaka for the following March.
Second time around, it wasn’t a drug issue tarnishing Nery’s reputation, but instead a weight issue. Three pounds over the bantamweight limit, Nery gave the impression of a fighter who hadn’t even tried before then going into the ring and blasting Yamanaka away inside two rounds. It was a messy, violent end to a brief rivalry full of controversy and the WBC belt, formerly Nery’s, was now left vacant.
Later, although he had outstayed his welcome, Nery did eventually move up a weight. It was there, at super-bantamweight, he then not only got his hands on another WBC belt but also suffered his first pro loss. That came against Brandon Figueroa in 2021 and saw Nery stopped inside seven rounds.
Three years on, he appears to be on the brink of challenging for world honours again, only this time against Naoya Inoue, a fearsome fighter who has been taken the distance just once since 2016.
