Naoya "El Monstruo de Japón/The 1.65m Godzilla/怪物 (Kaibutsu/Monster)" Inoue - acknowledge him!

Inoue really doesn't do anything in the ring in a less than excellent manner.

People can't or shouldn't give Western Hemisphere boxing fans grief about not knowing The Monster with many of his fights on at 5 to 7am. He needs to fight on prime time US to get exposure.
Even fighting in the UK would be Better.

 

He needs to take note from the Manny Pacquaio playbook. He was one of the biggest mainstream sports stars at one point, Inou can as well with the right promo.

Fellow Japanese Shohei Ohtani is a big star in MLB baseball.

 

Arguably the both the best boxer and best baseball players are Japanese.

 

P4P he does. Fury doesn't even make P4P top 10.

 

By the time Pacquiao was 30 he was a 7 weight champ. Had beaten Barrera, Marquez, Morales and Cotto. That is a tough resume to match.

 

For real. I watch at least one MLB game a day. My mind boggles often when I watch Shohei Ohtani play baseball. He is just beyond belief but he is real. What a gift to boxing and baseball fans Inoue and Ohtani are to watch playing their sports.

 

Sadly, whereas Ohtani is a household name in Japan with baseball being the national sport, Inoue is nowhere near that level of popularity.

I know young and middle aged women working in offices who follow Ohtani's career very closely. In comparison, I took a straw poll of 57 Japanese young women this afternoon. Not one of them had watched the fight, and only a handful were even really aware of it. They much prefer some effeminate iceskater who cuddles a whinny the poo teddy bear.

I'll do that same thing on Friday with a more sport orientated group, but I'm not expecting much difference.

It's shocking to me that Inoue isn't a main stream star out here. He has slowly been getting more and more recognition the last few years, but the Japanese always seem to find it almost odd how hyped I am talking about him, as they really don't recognize him as all that big a deal.

 

Was the eponymous Koki Kameda really as popular at home as I was lead to believe?

 

Not really.

Pac had a rags-to-riches story to sell, spoke decent English, and he LOVED the spotlight.

Inoue's from a middle class family, speaks no English, doesn't even want to attempt to learn English, and is intensely private and barely even gives interviews to Japanese media. In the interviews he does give, he's mostly stone-faced, calculated in everything he says, and doesn't appear to have much of a personality.

Inoue's not destined to be a superstar.

 

Inoue also lacks the opposition to build his fame a popularity like Pac had. When Pac moved up to 126 the division was hot with stars like Barrera and Morales and Hamed had also brought a lot of attention to the division, so when he beat Barrera, people noticed and even then Pac wasn't a house hold name, he needed even bigger stars in Hatton and Mayweather to build his popularity. Also the great fights he had with the likes of JMM and Morales and how competitive most of them were made fans pay attention.

Inoue in contrast has nobody at 122, 126, 130 who is even a big as name as Morales or Barrera let alone Hatton or Mayweather and Inoue is just levels above everyone at 122 and 126 and maybe even 130, so I don't see him having any wars to excite the fans any time soon, unless he picks up an injury early like he did vs Donaire.

So yeah I suspect you are right, he could run through 122, 126, 130, even 135, KOing everyone including Tank, Haney, Loma and Shakur, retire undefeated 50-0 or more and he'll probably never reach the levels of stardom that Pac did. Which is a shame but you play the hand you are dealt with.

 

Bit difficult for me to say really. I came to Japan in 2010 and I only really followed heavyweight boxing for the most part outside of the big fights. And most of my friends and clients were more into Baseball, Basketball and Football.

Anyway, I just asked someone, and he was certainly a known athlete, but as I mentioned above boxing isn't really all that popular over here. It really is a bit of a niche sport. One thing though, is the Japanese tend to choose one hobby and really zone in on it. So with Japan's population size, even niche sports have a highly committed audience.

But regarding mainstream appeal, I think he is probably more well-known in retirement as he started doing the TV show circuit. But I can't really say much beyond that.

 

Inoues level of competition is significantly lower than Pacquiaos. Though it's no fault of his own. The talent simply isnt there right now in and around his weight divisions.

 

He's intensely private and media access is tough even for Japanese media. That doesn't help. Are Ioka and Kenshiro more popular than him? I wouldn't be surprised.