Notebook: Alalshikh making plans for Naoya Inoue vs. 'Bam' Rodriguez
Walker stops Eggington in fight of the year candidate; Nakatani will be sidelined by broken orbital bone; Quick hits; Show & tell
A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.
With Naoya Inoue having outpointed and handed three-division titleholder Junto Nakatani his first defeat on Saturday at the Tokyo Dome in the biggest fight in Japanese history, the question afterward was what is next for “The Monster,” who retained the undisputed junior featherweight title?
It very well could be another smaller-weight mega fight against Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the three-belt lineal junior bantamweight champion and former unified flyweight champion.
Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, who brought Inoue and Nakatani to Riyadh in December to fight in separate bouts in their tune-ups before their showdown, was ringside on Saturday. After the fight, Alalshikh, through The Ring magazine, which he owns, said he is making plans to stage the bout for Inoue’s title in Japan in January. It would be an extremely compelling fight between unbeaten multi-division champions among the top few fighters in the world pound-for-pound.
