Naoya Inoue already surpassed Jofre and Olivares?

Greatness in a division is a hard sell with the way Inoue is managing his career.

But he's definitely one of the best ever below SBW.

 

He’s in his way to true all-time greatness but oftentimes, boxing fans can be a prisoner of the moment and have recently bias. What makes it challenging, is that there are far more weight classes today, far more belts, thus far more “champions” and that’s where the recency bias kicks in. If you’ve not done the thorough research, you could more inclined to remember an average belt holder who was very recent and not know a guy who was a perennial contender when there were less divisions or a guy who got a lot of big upset wins, like an Octavio Gomez.

Jofre and Olivares both said they’d have benefitted had that had a 122 division to deal with. They’d not have stuck around at 118 to lose their titles, they’d probably have both been able to sneak an extra title at 115 with weigh-ins the day prior as well.

Donaire is a bigger name than Medel, but it’s lazy to just see that name and assume the nearly 40 Donaire was better than a peak Medel. No chance. I don’t know that Donaire ever beats the peak version of Medel who was always in fine form in major fights. I don’t think Inoue has actually beaten a better fighter than the version of Bernardo Caraballo who Jofre beat. If you retroactively started counting a lot of the regional titles those guys won, passed them off as world champs, then more become HOF fighters and can be put into perspective better when comparing to the current guys.

Inoue is great, but let’s say he loses one day? In true form of fans of this day and age, all of a sudden he’d be totally written off. I say we see how it plays out. He’s a great fighter but it’s a little soon to measure him next to the likes of Jofre and Olivares.

 

That's a good post Chris, couldn't have put it much better.

 

I've just a fond blast of nostalgia for the late 00s, early 10s when a certain someone was relentlessly banging Donaire's drum in exactly the same fashion after the Nishioka, Narvaez and Montiel fights. Right before Rigo made him look like a bit of a mug. And Donaire had actually achieved more than what Inoue has. Beat better fighters and looked just as impressive (moreso even) but was unlucky to come across someone good enough and posing enough stylistic kryptonite to shunt the gravy train off it's tracks.

If Inoue were to paste or cleanly beat a few fighters roughly as good as some of the varying likes of Rudkin, Medel, Caraballo, Legra, Castillo, Sakurai, Caldwell etc (all of whom were considerably better than the calcifying version of Donaire) the goalposts shift and a debate is warranted, but until then, just let his career finish unfolding. And demonstrate due diligence and context like Chris stated above. Medel held the Mexican bantam title for years in its deepest era when it held comparable value to a modern splintered world title.

The trouble is that Inoue's future claim for greatness is always going to have to hinge on dominance and longevity over very poor overall competition, similar to Golovkin. So a comparison with someone like Olivares who fought in one the great deep eras and beat great fighters is always nebulous.

 

Inoue is a ****ing good fighter though, don't get me wrong.

 

That's the thing for me aswell Inoue has beaten alot of good/solid opponents, but there's no great fighter on there unless you count Donaire who had already lost numerous times. And who was in his late 30s and early 40s respectively which is pretty old for a fighter in lower weight classes.

Credit has to be given to Inoue for his dominance though very few fighters have dominated as many world class fighters as him without barely losing a round. It's a pity though he never got to fight Estrada, Gonzalez, who are both greats and would've told us just how good Inoue really is.

Unfortunately it looks like Inoue will have to keep moving up in weight to find that really big legacy making fight, and in the end it might be a step too far.

 

I'd really like to have seen him in against Sor Rungvisai, that would've told us quite a lot. An iron, big hitting physical powerhouse with an underrated skill set who was as big, if not bigger. Estrada might have been too small, Gonzalez likewise but more hindered by being too far past it. I'll always really hold it against Inoue for bypassing that group when superfly was **** hot by modern standards. Ioka, Nietes and so on. If he'd buried even those two it would've added something.

Speaking honestly though, watching Inoue closely, as good as he's been, I don't see a fighter with the overall package of Jofre, Gomez or Olivares. Nor Rose, Zarate or Harada. Closer maybe to the likes of Chandler and Pintor but less proven, especially compared to Pintor. Even then I'd say they were at least as good as him.

He's potentially on the same sort of skill and talent level as Trinidad and Mosley, moreso the latter than the former, though again both of them defeated better fighters than Inoue has done imo.

Sort of near great in Trinidad 's case and more what I'd class as historically excellent in Mosley's. Speed, power and a focused attack but with a distinct, straight up you punch then I'll punch type approach, though that was more typical of Trinidad in his later days than early welter ones where he was a bit more Arguello-esque. The type of limitation that Jofre and Olivares were above imo where multi-faceted attack and defence are one and the same thing.

 

The problem for Inoue is that there are no names out there if it he doesn't go for huge challenges like Loma and Davies.

 

Aye, this is his problem now. You have to respect Lomachenko in hindsight fighting opponents so much bigger than himself and getting down to business fighting the best around when he had the chance. He could've milked it at 130 for years but jumped up to an unnatural division in the modern sense and unified the titles there giving up a stone in weight.

 

That's what you have do to become great.

 

I agree Saldivar was past prime, but this was a 37 year old consensus top 5 all time BW beating a 30 year old consensus top 5 all time FW.

That's a MUCH better win than a prime BW Inoue beating a fair way past prime BW Donaire.

 

Jofre edging by a brilliant, physically bigger and faster fighter like Legra who was more or less still prime when Jofre himself was 37 dwarfs Inoue beating the old Donaire anyway, never mind the Saldivar fight. It's a shame that the latter fight doesn't exist any more though.

Even Jofre beating the likes of Stevens, Crawford and Octavio Gomez at feather stacks up well.

 

asero is a card, he was the sole reason back in the day that I was glad to see Donaire get knocked off his perch and I'm rapidly reaching the same point with Inoue because I'm a grumpy c*nt.

 

Since Joker's thread is no longer around, I'll summarize and say Inoue's bantamweight run is similar Jimmy Carruthers's run back in the early 50's. Both guys had relatively brief runs, but were both dominant as they cleaned out most of the available contenders in the process. @McGrain rated Jimmy Carruthers #20, and since I rate Inoue's run a bit more highly, I think that's his floor in an all time 118lb list all time.

However, Inoue also managed to face and defeat his #1 challenger twice and unify in the process. I think that puts him over the likes of Chandler and Pintor. Plus, I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where either guy defeats the bantamweight Inoue in a hypothetical matchup. So, we're at top 15 or so. I'd listen to an argument for Inoue over Zarate (McGrain's #10) based on the fact that the latter's quality of opposition was pretty lacking for much of his title reign, but I don't think I'd go along with it. Martinez and Zamora probably put CZ a little too far out of reach at least for me. Still, a pretty good position given the limited amount of time he spent there.

Anyway, he's followed up defeating the #1 and #2 guys at 122lbs in pretty resounding fashion. He's stated that he wants to face Nery and Akhmadaliev before moving up. If he does and wins, he'll have conducted a second cleanout in a remarkably short period of time. That's honestly pretty nuts if he pulls that off.

Anyway, as of this moment, he tentatively occupies a spot within my top 100 based on sheer dominance thus far. He's not at Jofre's and Olivares's level in terms of all time standing yet. But if he keeps cleaning out the top five in each division he won't be far off.

 

Age doesn't tell the whole story though. Saldivar was retired for 2+ years and in his last fight he was knocked out by a feather fisted Shibata which should already be ringing alarm bells. Jofre also proved to be his retirement fight. Donaire in the 1st fight was still game when he ran Inoue close. He would beat Oubaali for the WBC championship right after that. Jofre was also fighting at featherweight for around 3+ years when he and Saldivar fought.

A prime Inoue probably shouldn't have had that much trouble with Donaire but at that point in their career, Donaire was a much more resilient opposition than what that Saldivar was, despite the size difference. When Donaire was truly washed in the 2nd fight, Inoue wiped him out with ease as he was expected to do.