Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum, who started his career with Muhammad Ali, believes an active world champion is the greatest fighter of all time.
The 93-year-old founded Top Rank Boxing back in 1973 and has gone on to work with an abundance of legendary fighters including Floyd Mayweather, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Ali.
Over the last few years, Arum has played a key role in the careers of fighters such as Tyson Fury, Teofimo Lopez and reigning undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue, who is more commonly known as ‘The Monster’.
In an interview with Jai McCallister, Arum made no mistake in revealing Inoue as who he believes is the greatest fighter he has ever witnessed in a promotional career that has spanned over 50-years.
“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.”
Inoue, who has had 30 career fights, all wins with 27 KOs, has already captured world titles in four weight divisions as well as the undisputed championship in two, making him just the third fighter in boxing history to accomplish this within the ‘four belt era’.
Following his latest win over Ramon Cardenas, Inoue is set to face Murodjon Akhmadaliev this September in Tokyo. He has been heavily linked with a future showdown against WBA world featherweight champion Nick Ball.
Whether or not the 32-year-old can reach the heights of Ali, Mayweather and Pacquiao – who returns this month – remains to be seen.
