Dominant Inoue KOs Butler in 11th to become undisputed bantamweight champion
Japanese pound-for-pound star calls it his 'greatest moment'
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Japanese pound-for-pound star “The Monster” Naoya Inoue pounded his way into the boxing records books on Tuesday.
Inoue authored as one-sided a beat down as was imaginable against massive underdog Paul Butler before knocking him out in the 11th round to become the undisputed bantamweight world champion at Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
Inoue, who entered the fight as the unified WBC, IBF and WBA champion — along with holding The Ring magazine title — took Butler’s WBO belt with ease to become the first undisputed bantamweight champion of the three- or four-belt era and first Asian fighter to become a four-belt champion.
Inoue, a three-division champion, who previously won world titles at junior flyweight, junior bantamweight, became the first undisputed bantamweight champion since Panama’s Enrique Pinder unified the WBC and WBA titles during the two-belt era in 1972.
“I finally became the undisputed bantamweight world champion,” Inoue said in translated comments from his post-fight interview. “Thank you very much.”
Inoue also joined a select group of male fighters, becoming the ninth four-belt champion along with lightweight Devin Haney (2022), junior middleweight Jermell Charlo (2022), super middleweight Canelo Alvarez (2021), junior welterweight Josh Taylor (2021), cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (2018), junior welterweight Terrence Crawford (2017) and middleweights Jermain Taylor (2005) and Bernard Hopkins (2004).
The belts won’t stay unified for long. When the fight was made Inoue (24-0, 21 KOs), 29, who made his sixth bantamweight title defense, said it would be his final fight at 118 pounds and that afterward he would move up to 122 pounds and pursue a title in the junior featherweight division.
“It has been a long journey for me but this is the final chapter for me at bantamweight, Dec. 13,” Inoue said. “I finally made it and was able to reach my goal of becoming undisputed world champion and now I will change my division.”
Butler (34-3, 15 KOs), 34, a two-time bantamweight titlist from England, was in the right place at the right time to land the shot against Inoue and his first seven-figure payday. He outpointed Jonas Sultan for the WBO interim belt in April and later was upgraded to full titleholder when John Riel Casimero was stripped for pulling out against Butler, the mandatory challenger, for the second time.
That put Butler in position to face Inoue for all the belts and he never wavered about accepting the fight or traveling to Japan for the bout. But he had almost nothing to offer Inoue, whose offensive skills rival anyone’s in boxing.
From the outset, it was clear Butler was concerned about Inoue’s vaunted punching power. He kept a tight guard, moved a lot and rarely threw punches out of concern for what would come back when he opened up. He just had no interest in engaging with Inoue at all.
Inoue, meantime, fired with both hands to the head and body and relentlessly stalked Butler. He hurt him numerous times and broke him down as the fight progressed.
Late in the eighth round, Inoue, who was toying with Butler and doing anything he could do get him to commit to punching, pulled a trick from the bag of Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr. when he put both arms behind his back, stuck his chin out and began cocking his head side to side like a chicken so as to invite Butler to take a swing. But Inoue quickly unleashed a left hook and another barrage of punches that backed Butler into the ropes.
It was the same move Jones once famously did before landing one of his from-behind-the-back shots to knock out Glen Kelly in the seventh round of a 2002 undisputed light heavyweight title defense.
Finally, in the 11th round, with Butler still doing everything he could to avoid contact, Inoue nailed him with a right to the body and hook to the head. Butler was in retreat, but Inoue went to him again, trapped him on the ropes and unloaded about a dozen unanswered power shots that caused Butler to collapse to the canvas. He got to all fours but he was done and referee Bence Kovacs counted him out at 1 minute, 9 seconds.
According to CompuBox statistics, Inoue landed 151 of 665 punches (23 percent) and Butler landed a mere 38 of 301 punches (13 percent). Inoue outlanded Butler in every round and the most punches Butler landed in any round was just eight. He landed no punches in the first round and one apiece in the sixth and 11th in one of the weakest offensive performances in world title history.
In the end, it was an overwhelming domination by Inoue, who led by the shutout score of 100-90 on all three scorecards at the time of the knockout.
“It was very challenging for me. I have been aiming at achieving this,” Inoue said. “This is my greatest moment.”
Photos: Naoki Fukuda, Getty, Reuters
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Caught this on YouTube today. It's easy to be critical of Butler but he's a boxer without any real punch to speak of and so it was unreasonable to expect anything other than the performance that Butler gave - he clearly only wanted to survive the 12 rounds. That said, he wasn't on the "run" for every minute of every round and Inoue had plenty of opportunities to get to Butler.
It may be a bit churlish to criticise Inoue given Butler's attitude however, as negative as Butler was, Naoya should have been able to land enough clean punches on Butler's chin to stop him well before the 11th round. Butler took many body shots however for the most part he was able to keep his chin safe using his head movement and parrying many of Inoue's shots with his gloves. In the end it was yet another body shot that stopped Butler. I'm sure junior featherweights like MJ and Fulton will have found Inoue's performance interesting.
Finally, I thought the (ESPN?) commentary was too critical of Butler, they criticised him throughout the fight, and didn't level the slightest criticism of Inoue for taking so long to get rid of him.
Those commentators should consider that Butler didn't have to agree to an undisputed fight in Japan so that Inoue could become the undisputed champion - Butler could have ignored Inoue and simply defended the WBO belt against lesser opponents in the UK.
I know Butler got a very big purse, even so facing the p4p #1 and the likelihood of being badly knocked out by one of the biggest p4p punchers on the planet may have put off other boxers - however Butler agreed straight away to the match-up. Give the kid, who had no punch to keep Inoue at bay, a smidgen of credit.