2023 Fighter of year: Naoya Inoue
Plus the 6 honorable mentions in order; past winners year-by-year
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Japanese pound-for-pound star Naoya Inoue was coming off a stellar 2022 campaign that he concluded last December by destroying Paul Butler via one-sided 11th round knockout to fully unify the bantamweight division and make history as the first undisputed 118-pound champion in 50 years, since Panama’s Enrique Pinder unified the WBC and WBA titles during the two-belt era in 1972.
Further, Inoue became the first Asian fighter in any division to become a four-belt champion and the first undisputed bantamweight champion of the three- or four-belt era.
Inoue’s 2023 encore added even more history to his growing legend and made him the Fight Freaks Unite fighter of the year.
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