QUARTER MASTERS
#5 NAOYA INOUE 31-0 (27 KOs), 2012-present Titles held: Junior flyweight (WBC); Junior bantamweight (WBO); Bantamweight (undisputed); Junior featherweight (undisputed)
campaign at 115, where he took on battle-hardened Omar Narvaez, who was known for his punch resistance, and knocked him out in the second round. Seven defenses of the WBO junior bantamweight title followed, six of them stoppages, before he put on another three pounds and won a WBA “regular” bantamweight belt with a first-round knockout of Jamie McDonnell. Inoue also won the 118-pound World Boxing Super Series, but his 2019 Fight of the Year final against Nonito Donaire was an unexpected war that some took as a sign flashing “ceiling reached.” Inoue squashed that concern when he destroyed Donaire in the rematch,
unified every belt in the division and moved up to face No. 1-rated junior featherweight Stephen Fulton, who didn’t make it to the ninth round. The critics could be heard sharpening their knives again when Inoue, in his first and fourth fights as undisputed champion at 122, was knocked down by a left hook from Luis Nery and another from Ramon Cardenas. But in biting down and stopping both challengers, all Inoue did was reinforce his pound-for-pound claim.
Inoue dusts Emmanuel Rodriguez to become bantamweight champion.
Like Gonzalez at his best, Inoue is both technician and knockout artist,
but while his boxing skills aren’t quite as sublime, his punching power is on another planet. And so far, that power has traveled with him as he has gone from 108-pound titleholder to 122-pound undisputed champion. His style is pleasingly aggressive, mixing speed and uncanny timing with accuracy in both hands, often in scalding combinations, and he’s among the top counterpunchers in boxing – maybe the best. Those twin hammers are also rooted in footwork that can switch from nimble attack mode to pyramid-like stability in an instant. Knockouts have come from left hooks, straight rights, uppercuts, body shots ... good grief, the body shots. Every tool is at his disposal. And whatever vulnerabilities he has shown during a fight, his lapses only seem to stoke the furnace and bring out a killer instinct that bodes poorly for his foes. A trendsetter in the practice of forgoing prospect status and jumping straight into the top-tier mix, Inoue won his first title in his sixth pro fight. He made one defense before skipping flyweight entirely to
#6 ROMAN
Chocolatito lashes out at Omar Soto in a WBA junior flyweight title bout.
and in control; fearless prowess in the pocket; multi-level combinations so well conceived and executed that the first punch was already setting up the fourth, each driving the next in a fluid swarm. And everything did damage; everything counted. A devoted pupil of former three-division champion Alexis Arguello, Gonzalez honored his fellow Nicaraguan with an extraordinary blend of skill and knockout power that would see him become the smallest fighter ever to be No. 1 on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list. After a 16-fight knockout streak to begin his career, Gonzalez earned the WBA strawweight title in 2008, defended it three times and then moved up to junior flyweight, where he won the WBA belt and successfully defended it five times. He then bested Akira Yaegashi to win the Ring and WBC titles at flyweight, and it was here that he had his breakout moment with a two-round evisceration of Edgar Sosa on the HBO-
televised undercard of Golovkin vs. Willie Monroe. Two defenses followed before Gonzalez again pushed himself and moved up to junior bantamweight, where he became a four-division titleholder by outpointing the previously unbeaten Carlos Cuadras. And that’s when it all fell apart. The next challenger was an obscure Thai fighter named Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, and Gonzalez (46-0 with 38 KOs at the time) suffered his first loss by way of a disputed majority decision. In an immediate rematch, Sor Rungvisai knocked him out cold in the fourth round. After two disputed losses in his trilogy with fellow maestro Juan Francisco Estrada, Gonzalez has had something of a career resurgence and the magic is still there, but he is nearing 40.
GONZALEZ 53-4 (42 KOs), 2005-present Titles held: Strawweight (WBA); Junior flyweight (WBA); Flyweight (Ring, WBC); Junior bantamweight (WBA, WBC) Gonzalez fought in relative obscurity for years, his time in the world spotlight was pretty brief and it ended with a spectacular fall from grace, but during that time he aced the eye test like he’d stolen the answers ahead of time. The peak version of “Chocolatito” just did everything right: impeccable footwork that kept him balanced, in position
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