Y'all must've forgot about the 118lb Monster in the room...Naoya Inoue knocking on the p4p door.

There should be more threads on Inoue than you see. Like, a whole lot more.

There should be a comparable number to what are churned out daily on behalf of, say, Lomachenko (and certainly more than for any heavyweight in the game, since nobody in that division ought to be cracking a p4p top 40 if we're being honest). I'd wager that as of the conclusion of their respective WBA title fights later this month, Lomachenko and Inoue could be argued the #1 and #2 pound for pound (at least in terms of h2h value, and with résumé strength pretty close to supporting that qualitative evaluation). The only names besides the Ukrainian wunderkind's you could say definitively belong higher than Monster at the moment are Golovkin and Wangek and Inoue certainly has more upside (along with plenty of space to grow & improve) than either of those old fogies.

In fact, their upcoming May opponents (Jorge Linares & Jamie McDonnell) form sort of a microcosm of the overall Lomachenko & Inoue dynamic. Linares is the clearly superior foe, but that said, he's A+ while McDonnell is A-; in other words squarely behind yet not by all that much. So too is the career of Inoue thus far (both in the pros currently as well as in their amateur campaigns) just a few ticks under par with Loma's, yet still undeniably Great with a capital G, and nipping closer to Loma's heels than most anyone else under the sun.

Vasyl had that storied 396-1 amateur record, beating every man he faced at least once (and Selimov, the man who dealt the loss, twice over to avenge it). Inoue had a less staggering record of 75-6 but the caveat here is that he scored 48 victories by RSC (shorthand for "Referee Stopped Contest", which in the unpaid ranks is an umbrella term used to encompass all the stoppage types seen in the pros, ie knocked out cold, TKO, etc) - a breathtaking rate of stoppage for the amateurs. To knock out 60% of your opponents (64% of your W column, in Naoya's case) is almost unheard of, especially when competing at the highest international levels as both he & Loma did. Lomachenko, in comparison, was more of a point-scorer, and only scored RSC's in approximately 10% of his amateur contests (the resource sportenote, for instance, lists an excerpted 83 bouts from his overall amateur record, which I don't think is - or could be - listed anywhere comprehensively ...and only eight of those were via RSC). Vasyl's is the greater achievement, by any measure - but Naoya's is worthy of a low whistle itself.

In the prize ring as well, Lomachenko has in less time since his debut & fewer number of fights assembled the greater trophy shelf, with victories over Guillermo Rigondeaux and to a lesser extent Gary Russell Jr. eclipsing all of Inoue's - but, a few of the Japanese phenom's are of almost comparable pedigree to an unbeaten prime GRJ or 37 year old Chacal. Most notably his destruction of Omar Andrés Narváez & Kohei Kono, neither of whom had ever been stopped, stand out...buttressed by a solid secondary line of victories in Adrián "El Confesor" Hernández when he was on a run of red-hot form and Ryoichi Taguchi who is getting better and better causing that win to age like fine wine.

Lomachenko is 9-1 (7) in world title fights and is next weekend vying for a world title in a 3rd division, at lightweight. The world title fight record of the Kanagawan terror is currently 9-0 (8) and like the Odessan southpaw is a 2-division champion going this month for his 3rd, at bantamweight.

I could understand, during the period when Inoue went twelve whole months in his prime without fighting, the flames of hype dwindling to a mere ember. The guy fought thrice in 2017, however, and is jumping up to bantam challenging a respected top 4 guy in that division for a 3rd divisional title, and NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT. He is as decorated proportionate to his experience as pretty much anyone in the sport besides Lomachenko and is 5 years his junior AND has an undeniably more exciting and fan-friendly style. Yet...crickets.

 

You wouldn't value it over the Linares victory for Loma, though, would you?