On December 27, at the Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Naoya Inoue vs Alan Picasso headlined The Ring V: Night of the Samurai fight card. The event saw Junto Nakatani make his super bantamweight debut, grinding out a tough unanimous decision victory over Sebastian Hernandez.
Once that fight finished, Inoue-Picasso took centre stage, and Inoue delivered a dominating performance, winning by unanimous decision. However, the Monster was not happy with his performance and gave an honest assessment in the post-fight press conference.
Naoya Inoue defeats Alan Picasso in Riyadh
Naoya Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs never looked flustered against Alan Picasso (32-1-1, 17 KOs).
The ease of his win was reflected in the scorecards, which read 120-108, 119-109, and 117-111.
Inoue quickly got into his groove. putting together quick, powerful combinations. The variety from the Monster was most impressive. Picasso showed plenty of heart and was defensively solid, but he struggled to deal with the speed of his opponent.
Picasso made it to the final round, where he had his best moments, but he didn’t have the power to trouble the Japanese fighter. Despite Picasso’s best efforts to paint the dream win, Inoue dominated and got the win he deserved, retaining his undisputed super bantamweight title.
Inoue gives honest assessment of Picasso win
Speaking in the post-fight press conference, despite the dominating win, the Japanese superstar was not entirely happy with his performance:
“To be honest, it’s regrettable. Not meeting those expectations is extremely disappointing. Honestly, I really wanted to KO him. I think Picasso’s defence 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. Boxing, I wanted to do, didn’t match how I actually performed.
“Why things turned out this way is something I need to reflect on. I’ll need to reconsider my approach going forward,” said Inoue.
What is next for Naoya Inoue? Do we get the Japanese superfight against Junto Nakatani?
