If Naoya Inoue will go to featherweight, do you think there will be a Monster Hunter? If yes, who?

If Inoue goes to 126 and smashes, then Loma should drop down and that would be a fight for the ages.

 

American television has already done an extensive series about this called MonsterQuest. It was surprisingly bad and almost a total waste of time. The only footage of Inoue in it was very blurry and always of him ducking behind some tree somewhere. I don't know why he's so shy.

 

Rafael Espinoza, Nick Ball, and Brandon Figueroa are the guys that would make things a potentially tough fight for Inoue IMO.

 

It's a pretty stacked division in my view. All the more reason why I think Inoue should move up and face the fighters there as most of them would make some excellent scraps. You have Featherweight champs such as:

Rafael Espinoza
Brandon Figueroa
Nick Ball
Rey Vargas
Angelo Leo

And then you also have:

Bruce Carrington
Raymond Ford
Arnold Khegai
Luis Alberto Lopez
Robeisy Ramirez
Leigh Wood
Otabek Kholmatov
Mauricio Lara
Mark Magsayo
Josh Warrington
Reiya Abe

 

Bruce Carrington and Nick Ball have a good chance at upsetting Inoue

 

Inoue vs Ball would be a barnburner. As for Carrington I think he's talented but needs to fight and beat someone of note first to even consider his chances against Inoue.

 

You think Carrington wouldn't obliterate all of Inoues opponents ? I think he would. Every next weight class Inoue looks more and more human, but Inoue is the favorite for now

 

Hard to say. Carrington is a naturally bigger guy compared to all the opponents that Inoue has faced so it's a pretty irrelevant comparison since they're in different weight classes. Carrington has the goods but he still hasn't been battle tested enough against world class fighters to fully gauge his overall abilities just yet. Let's see how he looks if he were to face some higher level opponents like Ramirez or Espinoza before making that assumption. Would definitely like to see Carrington face Ford or Wood.

 

FYI, Lara has moved to 130, and both Wood and Warrington have said they plan to also iirc. I’m pretty sure Raymond Ford is moving up too. Fulton is coming to 126 though at least. Still, a very exciting division at the moment.

 

Espinoza and Ball are the only threats to Inoue at 126 supposing he can make the weight well enough. I wouldn’t favour either and I think both have holes Inoue would exploit (Espinoza’s leaky defence and Ball’s willingness to trade) but both would be 60/40 in Inoue’s favour roughly imo. Carrington would get curb-stomped by Inoue. The toughest matchup for Inoue remains Junto and he is someone I can see beating Inoue thanks to his height, power, and inside game. Junto is not to be overlooked when considering Inoue’s future.

 

Espinoza pretty much has those attributes you mentioned as well and it's the reason why I think he's a tough fighter for Inoue to deal with. Height, power, in-fighting, and workrate.

I don't doubt Junto being a threat though, he definitely has the skills to give Inoue problems.

 

I'm a big fan of Espinoza but he's more of a wear you down kind of a guy in terms of power whereas Junto has that kind of power that seems to electrocute you every time he hits you clean. The Moloney KO, beating up and stopping the incredibly tough Santiago, mangling Yamauchi's face, and smashing Acosta's nose to bits make me think that Junto is more explosive and powerful than Espinoza. He's also more physical than Espinoza imo, Junto can be very grimy and isn't afraid to wrestle or get physical. This doesn't match well with Inoue who has been defensively irresponsible inside in the past. Espinoza was also very lucky not to get stopped in the 4th against Robeisy. If Robeisy could drop and hurt Espinoza badly then I think Inoue would do worse. I've never seen Junto that badly hurt. Junto's ring iq is a bit higher than Chirino imo too. That said, if anybody would beat Inoue at 126, it's definitely Espinoza. He's the worst style match-up for Inoue at feather fro sure.