Naoya Inoue vs. Alan David Picasso Romero

December twenty-seventh at Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Inoue will defend the IBF, Ring Magazine, and WBA super bantamweight titles each for a sixth time as well as the WBO & WBC titles for a seventh each. Akhmadaliev is the current WBA interim champion. Picasso is the WBC mandatory, and ranked #5 by Ring Magazine and #3 by the WBO at super bantam.

The champion gives up 3" of height and 2½″ of reach to his challenger, and is seven years older. Both are undefeated.

The co-main event will see Willibaldo García Pérez defend his IBF junior bantamweight title against #6 ranked Kenshiro Teraji. In another supporting bout, undefeated super bantams Junto Nakatani and Sebastián Hernández Reyes will compete for the right to face the winner of the main event in spring of 2026 (Hernández is already ranked top 15 by three orgs, and Nakatani will be vacating his Ring, WBC, and IBF titles at bantamweight to move up). Nominally, that spot is held for Inoue vs. Nakatani but it could wind up being Picasso vs. Hernández in the case of two upsets.

 

The record is really quite padded. For being 32-0-1 you'd expect a higher achievement than a comfortable UD over Azat Hovhannisyan (which, okay, very good...but so did Sebastián Hernández Reyes, and so did Rey Vargas, and so did some dude named Juan Reyes...and Nery stopped him...)

Honestly despite the ugly record, Ye Joon Kim showed himself in his challenge of Inoue to actually be quite game and I think Picasso will be an easier out h2h.

 

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I know we're all high on Nakatani but damn, that seems disrespectful AF to Hernández to be only half as long odds as Picasso. And even worse for WGP as the reigning champ at those same odds against Teraji.

 

Hayato Tsutsumi vs. Jazz Dickens a low-key banger on the undercard.