A t 33, Naoya Inoue may be entering the final stage of his career, but his fame, reputation and profile have never been higher. He boasts a perfect record of 33-0 (27 KOs) since turning professional, has won world titles in four weight classes and is a two-division undisputed champion. Inoue currently sits atop The Ring’s pound-for-pound rankings. On May 2, he scored a clear decision victory over Junto Nakatani in the Tokyo Dome showdown billed as “The Day.” Inoue pulled away from the five-years-younger “Big Bang” in the late rounds, asserting his superiority over the three- division champion and reminding everyone why he is known as “The Monster.” Even after accomplishing
There was a mirror, a hanging sandbag and a bench press for weight training. That was pretty much it. Everything started in that small room. “My father and trainer, Shingo, didn’t want me to take boxing lightly. If I was going to do it, he wanted me to be fully committed, but I’m not sure I had that kind of determination from the beginning. Even as a kid, since I was the one who said I wanted to box, my father would remind me from time to time that I should stick with it until the end. Gradually, that became my own commitment. I think I had my own will to keep going, but my father was also good at creating a situation where it was hard for me to tell him I wanted to quit. I was training alongside Takuma and my cousin Koki, too.
My First Time: Naoya Inoue As told to Daisuke Sugiura
virtually everything a boxer could hope to achieve, he has lost none of his desire to push himself further. “Part of me does want to finish my career undefeated,”
Because the three of us were doing it together, there was an atmosphere that made it difficult to just walk away from boxing. “At one point, when I was in fourth grade, I had trouble focusing on my boxing training. There weren’t really any tournaments for kids back then like there are today, so I think I was getting bored with the routine. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to quit as my father pushed me away, telling me, ‘If you’re not serious about it anymore, then you can stop. You don’t have to do it.’ He was basically saying, ‘That’s enough for you.’ I went about
admitted Inoue. “But if I become too attached to
that, I feel like I might move away from what it means to challenge myself. So while I’d like to keep that goal in mind, I also want to show people, through the way I live out the final part of my career, that I’m willing to keep challenging myself all the way to the end.” Raised under his father’s
guidance in a family steeped in boxing, Inoue has a younger brother, Takuma, who is a two-time bantamweight titleholder, and a cousin, Koki, who has held the Japanese junior welterweight title. The finest product of Japanese boxing shows no signs of slowing down. Looking back at his roots offers a glimpse into the passion for boxing that lies behind the extraordinary strength of “The Monster.” THE FIRST TIME I LACED UP GLOVES “To be honest with you, I don’t remember the first time I put on boxing gloves. My earliest memory of boxing is shadowboxing in front of a mirror at home, but I don’t remember exactly when that was or how old I was. “I started boxing when I was in my final year of kindergarten. So I must have been 5. I remember being in the kindergarten soccer club and having to choose between boxing and soccer when I graduated. I was trying to imitate what I saw others doing in boxing ... Well, actually, maybe it was first grade in elementary school. (laughs) My memory of it is pretty vague. “At first, I trained at home rather than in a gym. My father turned a room of about six tatami mats into a training room.
a week without going to the gym. But Takuma and Koki were still training, so I felt like I had to speak up and say, ‘Actually, I do want to take this seriously after all.’ Looking back, I think my father was really good at creating that kind of atmosphere.” (laughs) MY FIRST AMATEUR FIGHT “My first amateur bout was at a sparring competition at Yokohama Sakura Gym. It wasn’t an official tournament, but it was my first time competing against someone from outside the gym. I was in sixth grade, facing an eighth-grader, and won by referee stoppage. “The punches that hurt my opponent were a one-two combination, I think. The one-two landed flush, his nose started bleeding and the referee gave him a standing count. I followed up with a few more punches, and since it was a kids’ bout, the referee immediately stepped in to stop the action. “I don’t remember my opponent’s name or what kind of boxer he was, but I do remember being incredibly nervous! Oh boy, I was so nervous. At the time, I wasn’t thinking about competing in any tournaments or anything like that. So when
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