I believe he has beaten 3 left handers in a row. Is it just a talent thing whereby he is far more talented than the southpaws are? Or does Innoue do something special vs left handed fighters that other fighters in other weight classes can learn from?
Imo it's just his ability to adapt and level of talent. The guy is just THAT good and will likely cope with every style It will take a special fighter or someone bigger to beat Inoue I think he is the best today and reminds me of a mix of manny and Floyd. Not a perfect fighter, who is? But a special talent
They are not great“lefty”.There hasn’t been a great lefty in thus division since Hamed or Pac .Today best is loma a distant second rigondeaux but he turns 50.Apart from Nonaire his resume isn’t that stacked of HOF or big name superstars of the sport.
Most righties turning pro young are Innoucent when it comes to southpaws cause they face so few, but Monsta had an extensive amateur career before turning pro and national championships are quite fierce in all age groups so he was tested. You also clock in a lot of sparring in those busy Japanese gyms, it's not like PBC fighters showing up for a 6-week, secluded camp once a year with your arshe kissed all around.
It's both, there aren't a whole lot of extremely high level southpaws at the weight (Nery for example is one of my favorite small guys and I wouldn't call him an extremely high level fighter). Inoue is just heads/tails above everyone, that combined with the fact that there isn't anyone like a Rigo or a Vic Darchinyan for example helps
He’s clearly a lot better than all of the southpaws he’s faced. A few reasons though, he’s a liver hunter and southpaws are especially vulnerable to that, also, southpaws aren’t as taboo as they were before.
Inoue's got a great left hook to the body, which is a great weapon against southpaws. He's also got a great left hook to the head, and straight right hand which are southpaw killers. The Dasmarinas fight is a great showcase of his skills against southpaws and how devastating his left hook to the body is. This content is protected
The yakuza, loaded gloves, PEDs, never fights outside Japan where the refs, judges and his opponents aren't being coerced and bribed by the yakuza. This content is protected We have to revaluate Inoue's chances at 126 Some feel that those guys at 126 might be too big and powerful for him And that maybe 126 might be a bridge too far for him But who factored in him making the adjustment of morphing into a master boxer and using his speed and skills to outbox them or at least doing so against some of them for long spells?
The number of southpaws that Inoue has defeated, especially the ones who were also champs, is really impressive. His impressive performances with southpaws is one of the reasons why I favor him over Bam should they fight next. If he made power punching southpaws like MJ and Nakatani hesitant then I feel the same could happen to Bam. Whether or not Bam can put up a better fight than those two at the beginning remains to be seen. I think Bam can potentially start faster and let his punches more in order to not let Inoue win the opening rounds. The biggest question is how Bam reacts the moment he feels Inoue's power and also his ability to quickly adjust in fights. This makes Inoue vs Bam all the more interesting. A very exciting match up to be made.
Inoue is very good against southpaws because he understands the importance of hand-fighting and of using the jab. Loads of orthodox fighters abandon or under-utilise the jab against southpaw opponents, so southpaws are used to being able to get their jab going without any problem because orthodox fighters tend to focus on landing the right hand. Inoue is able to consistently get dominant hand positioning when jousting with the lead hand and then converts this into offensive opportunities with the jab. He sets the tempo with the jab and then builds on it to add the rest of his offensive arsenal and uses both inside and outside foot positions offensively, which works a lot better than loading up on a single right hand and looking for outside foot position, which is what a lot of southpaws are used to dealing with.
