Naoya Inoue may have done enough to remain undefeated and solidify his spot as boxing’s pound-for-pound best earlier today (Sat., Dec. 27, 2025) in a title defense against David Picasso at The Ring V: “Night of the Samurai” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but “Monster” is not happy with his own performance and ultimately believes it’s because he lost focus.
Saturday’s masterclass performance by Inoue appeared to be par for the course, but the undisputed super bantamweight champion simply wasn’t able to find a home for a finish. Picasso sports some pretty solid defense, but Inoue had won 27 out of his 31 professional fights via knockout heading into this weekend. He expected to be able to do enough over 12 rounds to find the knockout blow and become the first person to stop Picasso (even though he become the first person to hand him a loss).
Inoue, who is on the short list of pound-for-pound greats competing in boxing right now, still looked incredibly dominant and did enough to lock down a massive superfight with fellow Japanese superstar Junto Nakatani sometime next year. However, that doesn’t soften the blow for Inoue, who was hoping for a knockout finish this weekend to close out 2025 in dramatic fashion.
“To be honest, it’s regrettable,” said Inoue during Saturday’s post-fight press conference (shown in the above video player). “Not meeting those expectations is extremely disappointing.”
“Honestly, I really wanted to KO him. I think Picasso’s defense was just too good. That’s what it comes down to.”
“Rather than talking about boxing today, I feel my concentration wasn’t there. Yeah, I wasn’t in sync with myself. That was the issue. I think I lost focus.”
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