Bob Arum has seen it all in the sport of boxing.
The promoter put on his first fight back in 1966 featuring none other than Muhammad Ali. He would stage a further 27 cards headlined by ‘The Greatest’ before working with George Foreman, Marvin Hagler, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao to name but a few.
Moving on to the modern-day and the 92-year-old veteran has had a hand in building the careers of Terence Crawford, Shakur Stevenson, Teofimo Lopez and Tyson Fury.
It’s Japan’s Naoya Inoue that Arum is most impressed with however, the four-weight world champion being the recipient of the highest possible praise from Arum during an interview with Jai McAllister.
“He is not only pound-for-pound the best in the world, Inoue is the best fighter I have ever seen, no matter the what weight category. In over 60 years in boxing, I have never seen anything like Inoue.”
Speaking to Boxing Scene in a similar vein, Arum said he was ‘honoured’ to be promoting the Japanese phenomenon.
“It’s scary with what I am seeing. He overwhelms really good opponents. I’ve never seen a fighter of that size perform the way he has.
Maybe Salvador Sanchez had that ability. Even then, Sanchez did not win nearly all his fights by knockout. Inoue goes in, boxes, and knocks these guys out. What we’re seeing in Inoue is something that is really special. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He’s as special to boxing to what [Japanese star] Shohei Ohtani is to baseball. We’re honoured to be playing a part in his career.”
The lower weight classes don’t often play host to such knockout artists, but Inoue goes against the grain by regularly adding to his stoppage highlight reel. He has finished 24 of 27 wins inside the distance whilst completing the light-fly, super-fly, bantam and super-bantamweight ranks. Along the way he has logged wins over Nonito Donaire, Stephen Fulton, Omar Andres Narvaez and Emmanuel Rodriguez.
Last year he became one of three men to be undisputed in two weight classes alongside Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk.He currently holds all four belts at 122 pounds and will defend that status against TJ Doheny next month.
