A bureaucratic measure or two apparently is all that stands in the way of the rematch between Naoya Inoue and Nonito Donaire, according to promoter Bob Arum.
The Top Rank Inc. boss, who co-promotes Japan’s IBF and WBA 118-pound champion Inoue, said he believes a re-run of the pair’s well-received title bout in 2019 in Saitama is on the cusp of being a done deal. BoxingScene.com reported in January that negotiations had begun between Inoue and WBC titlist Donaire.
The only major hurdle holding it back, Arum said, is the Japanese government’s current border control restrictions in response to the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
Japan eased their restrictions last year but toughened them up in November – thus barring all foreigners and tourists – because of rising cases of COVID-19 infections.
Donaire, a Filipino-American, would not be able to enter the country under the current measures.
Arum said all the parties – Donaire is promoted by Richard Schaefer of Probellum and Inoue is backed by Arum and his Japanese handlers Hideyuki Ohashi and Akihiko Honda – are in agreement; all they need is the green light from the Japanese government.
“I think that’s really close,” Arum said of the fight in an interview with the 3 Knockdown Rule. “Everything depends not on Donaire, not on Inoue, not Ohashi or Honda, but on the Japanese government lifting the restrictions on events and so forth.”
Japan’s COVID-19 restrictions have already waylaid one major fight on the boxing schedule, the middleweight title bout between IBF beltholder Gennadiy Golovkin and WBA titlist Ryota Murata, which was originally penciled in for December in Tokyo. Now that fight could reportedly take place in April.
Recent reports from Japan suggest the country will start to relax its restrictions beginning in March.
“From what we understand, April we’ll be in all clear,” Arum said. “The world is opening up.”
An Inoue-Donaire rematch would be an intriguing matchup, reprising what many fans and pundits felt was one of the best fights of 2019. Part of the finals of the World Boxing Super Series, the high-octane shootout saw the hard-punching dynamo Inoue sustain a broken orbital bone en route to winning a unanimous decision over the veteran, four-division titlist Donaire, who suffered a knockdown in the 11th round.
Despite the clear loss, Donaire (42-6, 28 KOs) has presumably done enough in the interval to make a rematch sellable. Last year, in May, he violently wrested the WBC 118-pound title from then beltholder Nordine Oubaali with a fourth-round knockout. In his following outing, Donaire scored yet another fourth-round stoppage, in a title defense against Reymart Gaballo.
Inoue (22-0, 19 KOs), a three-division titlist, has continued to rack up wins since his victory over Donaire. He brutalized Australia’s Jason Moloney in 2020 with a seventh-round knockout, blew out Michael Dasmarinas in the third round last June, and stopped Aran Dipaen in December.