If everything goes to plan, Naoya Inoue’s first undisputed super bantamweight title defense will be the biggest spectacle of his career. MyNavi reports and Jake Donovan confirms that plans are in place to stage his grudge match with Luis Nery on May 6th at the Tokyo Dome.
That’s a Monday in the west, for the record, but it’s both Sunday the 5th and the last day of Golden Week in Japan.
As Donovan points out, the Dome hasn’t hosted a major boxing match since Buster Douglas’ legendary 1990 upset of Mike Tyson. Those are big shoes to fill, but if any Inoue (26-0, 23 KO) fight can draw that sort of crowd, it’s this one. Few fighters have antagonized the Japanese boxing scene like Nery (35-1, 27 KO), who not only knocked out a beloved champion twice in a row but cheated to do so both times.
In terms of nationalistic bad blood, this is probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to Takamura vs Hawk.
We’ll let you know if and when they make it official. Japanese shows tend not to be overly top-heavy in general, so you can bet they’ll put together one hell of a supporting cast for the Dome.