Naoya Inoue-Luis Nery: Stats and Stakes

Previewing the biggest fight in Japan since Douglas-Tyson

In Japan, it’s a superfight.

By the time the receipts are counted, the junior featherweight championship bout on Monday (ESPN+, 4 AM EST) is likely to be the richest domestic fight in Japanese history and the biggest fight there globally since Mike Tyson’s battles with Tony Tubbs and Buster Douglas. The Tokyo Dome will be packed with roughly 50,000 fans for one of the best fights that can be made in the division.

It's a fight long in the making.

When Luis Nery was rising through the ranks at bantamweight, fans of the lighter weight classes wondered if they were seeing a potential rival for Naoya Inoue. It was easy to see the two heading down a collision course.

That course has taken some twists and turns for the challenger. 

Nery won the bantamweight crown from Shinsuke Yamanaka only to be clouded with a failed PED test and then a gross missing of weight in the rematch. He was, prior to this bout, banned from fighting in Japan for those transgressions.

Nery moved up to junior featherweight, won a belt, and promptly got stopped by Brandon Figueroa in his first defense. It’s what he’s done since that earned him this shot at redemption. Nery dropped and narrowly outpointed undefeated Carlos Castro to show he was still a force after his first defeat. Then, last year, Nery outlasted contender Azat Hovhannisyan in one of the best fights of 2023. 

Was it enough to prepare him for arguably the most talented fighter on Earth?

Inoue has barely lost a round since winning the World Boxing Super Series in a classic with Nonito Donaire in 2019. Inoue will be facing his tenth opponent ranked top ten in their class by TBRB or Ring in his last twelve starts and most of those ten were ranked in the top five. Along the way, Inoue became the first undisputed bantamweight champion in just shy of 50 years and the first undisputed junior featherweight champion period since the modern version of the class was born in the mid-1970s. 

Inoue is the big betting favorite, but Nery is a capable, experienced professional with legitimate skill and power. Almost sixty years of championship showdowns between battlers from Mexico and Japan teaches us anything is possible when top fighters from these two nations get it on.

Can Nery rewrite the story of his career and shatter the trajectory of Inoue’s?

Let’s get into it.