“Monster” Inoue Ready For Tuesday Night Defense

Coming up Tuesday night in Japan one of the most prolific smaller weight fighters in the sport right now is back in action, as  Naoya “The Monster” Inoue makes his returns to his homeland.

Inoue, 21-0, gets set to defend his WBA/IBF Unified World Bantamweight championships in Tokyo against Aran Dipaen of Thailand (12-2, 11 KOs) in a scheduled 12-rounder.

The fighters weighed in mid-day Monday Japanese time with Inoue hitting the limit on the number of 118 lb.

Pesaje en Tokio:

Naoya Inoue 117.9 libras y Aran Dipaen 117.5 libras.

Todo en orden para el combate del martes por Mundial Unificado gallo WBA&IBF pic.twitter.com/pFTTk6cEAP

— JuliusJulianis (@julianisjulius) December 13, 2021

When last we saw “the Monster,” he was disposing of Michael Dasmarinas in short order with a third-round TKO win in June in Las Vegas. Inoue, who has tremendous power in either hand, landed 31 of his 48 power punches in just two and a half rounds, while dropping Desmarinas for the final time with a body shot.

That Knockout was the 14th in his last 16 fights for the unbeaten Japanese superstar and it clearly has him at the top of the Bantamweight division.

This brings the intrigue of a possible big fight for Inoue, which would be a rematch with WBC World champion, 39 year old Nonito Donaire.  For Donaire’s part, he just defended his version of the Bantamweight  title for the third time with a body-shot KO of Reymart Gaballo on  Saturday night in Carson,California.

So, the fighter’s schedules also now alight and we wait to see if Inoue and Donaire fight again. This, after their thrilling December of 2019 battle in the finals of the World Boxing Super Series. In that meeting, Inoue won a hotly contested finish, which included “the monster” suffering a fractured eye orbital late in the fight but still pulling it out.

That fight left us wanting more and with the hope that Inoue, in particular, has motivation to rematch Donaire, even though he got a decisive decision in their first bout. And, it’s likely that Top Rank Boxing would want that bout to be in the United Sates, as well, and quite possibly back in Las Vegas.

But, first for “the monster,” it’s time for him to deliver in front his fans on PPV Tuesday night.