Legendary promoter Bob Arum has revealed who he believes to be the greatest fighter in boxing history.
Arum made the transition into boxing during the 1960s having come into contact with the sport previously during his impressive law career. He co-founded Top Rank Boxing in 1973 and has worked with an abundance of generational greats during this time.
Arum worked with the late, great heavyweight icon Muhammad Ali throughout the seventies, but more recently has promoted the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Canelo Alvarez.
He also played a pivotal role in the resurgence of Tyson Fury, who bounced back from a number of personal issues to sensationally dethrone Deontay Wilder of the WBC world heavyweight title back in 2020.
Despite working with so many of the sport’s greatest fighters, Arum has spoken out and revealed in an interview with Jai McCallister that he believes unbeaten Japanese sensation Naoya ‘The Monster’ Inoue is the best fighter to have ever laced up the gloves.
“Inoue is not only pound-for-pound the best in the world, Inoue is the best fighter I’ve ever seen, no matter what weight category or anything.
“I have never ever in the almost 60-years I’ve been in boxing seen anything like Inoue.”
He describes what Inoue is doing in the sport as ‘scary’.
“It’s scary what I’m seeing. He so overwhelms his opponents, really good opponents. I’ve never seen a fighter of that size perform the way he has. Maybe a Salvador Sanchez had that ability, but even then he didn’t win all his fights by knockout. Inoue goes into these fights, he boxes these guys and then he knocks them out. What we’re seeing in Inoue is something really special. It’s as special for boxing as Otani is for baseball.”
Inoue has had an outstanding professional career since making his debut back in 2012. The 32-year-old from Kanagawa has won world titles in four weight divisions, including the undisputed championship at bantamweight and super-bantamweight.
‘The Monster’ made the most recent defence of his undisputed crown at 122lbs against Ramon Cardenas in Las Vegas on May 4, stopping the American inside eight rounds.
It has been reported that the Japanese superstar will make one more ring appearance this year, with rumours circulating that he will lock horns with former unified super-bantamweight champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev next.
