Inoue recently has done nothing he only beat a old shot past from Nonito and that was more than a year ago
There's definitely a lot of smoke and mirrors and if you don't count all the gifts he's received from his judges, especially the two against an old way past prime GGG which of course we shouldn't, his CV doesn't look half as impressive and this is just FACTs talking.
Nonito looked better at bantamweight than his stint in the higher weight classes. His performance in the tournament prior to the final showdown with inoue is a testament to that. He also had never been defeated at bantam before the inoue fight. As Teddy Atlas said referring to Donaire, sometimes old champions can remember and bring it back. And Inoue also beat Jason Moloney this halloween. Moloney is a top 10 bantam and he got dominated by inoue the whole fight. Anyone that thinks moloney is a chump is mistaken. He fought smartly and resisted in-fighting inoue because he knows thats where the heat will be the greatest from inoue. Though fast, he looked pretty slow in front of inoue and inoue's power caught up to him at last.
Well... seeing as how I had him winning the lara fight and golovkin rematch, there is only one right answer for me and that is Canelo. If you scored the rematch for Golovkin, its likely Inoue.
Hard to go against Canelo. I like Crawford's potential but that's all it is until he fights his real challengers. Canelo has proven, beyond a doubt, that he will take on any challenger, and look impressive beating them. Even if you say GGG beat him, Canelo has gone beyond what GGG was willing to do and that is go up in weight classes for more challenging fights.
I was also leaning towards Usyk but he didn’t look like a PFP fighter in any of his HW fights. He didn’t lose but I need more from my PFP champs. Hopefully he will have his chance in 21. I hope ‘21 gives us some great fights. Maybe Crawford will fight Spence, Tank will fight an actual guy at his own weight in the top five or so, and Beterbiev will fight Bivol. That’s an interesting fight no one talks about. They don’t fight frequently enough so it’s easy to forget. Two Russians is not good for the box office.
Inoue beat better boxers than Bud has, 3 topclass fights that lasted 2 rounds or less back 2 back, & beat Moloney in last fight. Inoue for his size is true p4p, let's see Bud fight Spence then come back & chat p4p.
Both Inoue and Usyk would beat Clenelo and Crawford if they were the same size as each other and I have zero doubt regarding that.
He has had a few gifts though! There a reason people make a joke of "Canelo on points" when answering predictions to fight, even ones that do not involve him
Donaire didn't really do much in the WBSS tournament, however. He advanced due to injuries more than merit. Had Ryan Burnett not gotten the back injury, it seems as if Donaire would have been out of the first round. Donaire's win over Stephon Young was nice, but it's still Stephon Young. In regard to Moloney, yeah, he is a top-10 bantamweight and he's quality, but he is far from elite, even in his own division. He couldn't beat Rodriguez and I suspect he couldn't beat any current top-10 guy in his class, minus Oscar Negrete. I would favor Takuma Inoue over Moloney.