What say you? And why? Both guys have certain similarities. They were/are both brutal body punchers, both had a lot of punching variety, both dominated southpaws, both had success in multiple divisions. But Innoue is more of a stalker and Arguello was a tall boxer-puncher.
Whilst Inoue is a little quicker and just as powerful, from a p4p perspective, I think Arguello was more skilled.
I feel like Iniue is more athletically gifted with more speed and power but as for traditional skills, It's AA for me.
Arguello actually proved his skills against a higher calibre of opposition. I also can't see Arguello struggling against an old Donaire if he was in that position. Inoue, whilst skilled, has always been pretty reliant on his incredible power and cat like athleticism and reflexes.
Olivares wasn't at his best and he was giving Arguello fits. That version of Donaire (in the first fight at least) was rejuvenated and better than previous years. Inoue has shown his skill against a plethora of fighters. But on a pure boxing level, Arguello is more technical. Inoue is very much like Roy Jones.
Donaire was 36 though. No matter how rejuvenated a fighter is he is not prime at 36, especially at the lower weights and with all the experience Donaire already had. Personally I think that bout was a showing of stylistic deficiencies from Inoue. Donaire is a stylistic foil for him due to his ability to punch with others as they punch themselves. Inoue always has trouble, and likely loses, to a prime Donaire. Arguello also really bloomed at 130 and 135 skill wise imo. At 126 he was still unsure of when to push the initiative and when to pick his spots boxing. 130 is where he started to really become machine like with the blend of offense and defense. Also Olivares wasn't so far removed from his prime and was still scoring some good wins before and after Arguello (e.g. Hafey and Fukiyama). Personally I think it's actually an underrated win for Alexis. And yeah I'd agree on the Jones Jr comparison. Although Arguello's physical ability is also underrated. We've yet to see if Inoue can show what Arguello did at a higher weight against a Pryor tier fighter.
Donaire had lost 4 times convincingly by the time Inoue got to him though. Rigondeaux schooled him. Walters stopped him. Magdaleno beat him convincingly on points as did Frampton. Ok 2 of those fights were at Featherweight but Rigondeuax, Magdaleno, beat him convincingly at Super Bantamweight. And there hasn't been many cases of a fighter in the lower weightclasses being overly good in their late 30s. Donaire was in his prime and amongst the P4P rankings between 2007-2012 that was his peak years. Inoue fought him in 2019 which is a long time after his prime. And whilst Olivares wasn't at his absolute peak at Featherweight when he fought Arguello. He was still 28 years old compared to 36 years old in Doniare.
Regarding their perspective fights with Donaire and Olivares, it's a good comparison imo. Both revealed stylistic truths about Arguello/Inoue which remained for the rest of their careers, both were sort of coming off age fights and they're probably the best fighter either man beat in a "who's better at boxing, who cares about size" way. I'll say this tho, while Inoue didn't lose nearly as many rounds as Arguello did, he was closer to his prime and Donaire was probably slightly further away from his. However, I think it's important to remember that Arguello did absolutely blast Olivares and Olivares is a flat out better fighter than Donaire.
