Naoya Inoue is the Only Elite Fighter Knocking Out Other Elite Fighters

Luis Nery himself was gifted the WBC belt at Super Bantamweight because of the WBC's favoritism towards Mexican fighters, what exactly has Nery done at 122, guy managed to scrap by a decision vs a Mexican journeyman and won a vacant belt. Everyone knows that Nery cheated against Yamanaka in both of those fights at 118, the man is a cheating scum and once he got off the PEDS he's looked like absolute dog ****, I've been waiting for that fraud to get knocked out since 2018 and it so happens Figueroa did it in 2021.

Also at Mark Magsayo. He beat an extremely inactive Russel Jr who hadn't fought in 2 years and injured his shoulder in the 4th round. Russel fought once per year against subpar competition, I don't think any of his opponents besides Kiko Martinez were ranked in the top 10, I'm surprised he still had his belt being inactive for that long. This is just testament to how weak the featherweight division has become over the years.

 

Any Champion of their Division is a top notch fighter who can be considered Elite. I think the fact that Inoue is Japanese and not American has a lot to do with some negative attitudes on this thread. You can damn well be sure if Inoue were an American fighter this would not even be questioned.

 

elite for me is a fighter with a championship belt.
i'd consider the number of championship wins a fighter has as a measure of how good he is. inoue has (i believe) 19 world title fights and won them all. who else has this many championship wins?

 

Inoue got a lot of posters losing sleep.

 

"if we consider Linares elite."

I don't see how we can't by your criteria given he was the current Ring champion at 135. If he's not elite then we either need a new metric or it becomes an exercise in complete subjectivity.

"we can't take hypothetical fighters that no one can remember as evidence someone else is doing it"

Perhaps Inoue is the only active fighter in the sport who has either KO'd all of his 2+ or a majority of his 3+ opponents who were rated No.1 (excluding himself) by Ring in his weight class at the time. I haven't trawled through the monthly Ring rankings or the lower weight classes to find out, nor does anyone track it. On the face of it it's impressive but is it especially meaningful given the fact that heavier fighters can't hop between weights so easily and struggle more to make fights?

Edit: Jermell Charlo also qualifies as a fighter KO'ing other elite fighters regularly: Rosario was No.2 with Ring behind Charlo, Castano was also 2nd to Charlo, so he's 2/3.

 

Yes, Inoue's victim's have been elite. If you don't think Donaire is elite then go back to boxing 101.

Yes, Beterbiev has been koing elite fighters - the Nail was elite. But some of his other opponent are not quite st that level. Once Beterbiev gets Bivol into the ring he can match Inoue.

 

As some others have already pointed out, the talent pool in the divisions he's fought at is not great - I don't think he's fought even one truly "elite" boxer.

There are levels to this sport, just like any other, and at the highest level, you don't see that many knockouts because the boxers make much fewer mistakes. This happens in pretty much any sport - the highest level is usually regarded as "boring" by casual fans.

 

Indeed Beterbiev's the Peoples Champ.

 

You Dirty Dog you killed my Brother!!

 

This weekend you will see real elite vs elite match up.Evenly in every category pnd for pnd, power for power.Record for record.Belt for belt etc.Will be the number 1 in baxxing as of 30-07-2023.Real elites fo real.

 

What the heck you on about Willis?Fulton a fake elite..Just like Buttler and Mcdonalds.