Boxing

Turki Alalshikh Names The Blockbuster Naoya Inoue Fight He Wants For The End Of 2025

If all goes according to plan, Naoya Inoue will face the toughest test of his career in December 2025.
Grant Young|
IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO World Super Bantam weight Championship at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO World Super Bantam weight Championship at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. | IMAGO / AFLOSPORT

While he might not be the biggest name in North America, anybody who knows boxing is well aware of Naoya "The Monster" Inoue.

The 31-year-old Japanese boxer has amassed a perfect 29-0 record (with 26 KOs) across his professional career, has held multiple world titles in four different weight classes, is the only boxer in history to win an undisputed championship at super bantamweight, and is currently a consensus top-three pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

On February 4, we learned from Ring Magazine that Inoue will be returning to the ring on June 14 in Las Vegas, where he's slated to face WBC No. 1 contender David Picasso.

Despite Picasso holding an impressive 30-0-1 record with 17 KOs, there's no doubt Inoue will enter this fight as a massive favorite, given how unstoppable he has been across his career.

Assuming that fight goes well for Inoue, Turki Alalsikh, Chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, revealed on February 7 that he wants Inoue to make his Riyadh Season debut in December 2025 — and has a fascinating opponent in mind for him.

"I prefer [Naoya Inoue] against [Junto Nakatani]," Alalshikh said to ESPN's Mike Coppinger, per an X post from Ring Magazine.

Junto Nakatani is arguably the second-best Japanese boxer in the world right now, as he also boasts an undefeated 29-0 professional record (22 KOs), has held world championships in three weight classes, and is currently the WBC bantamweight champion.

While Inoue and Nakatani are currently fighting in different divisions, bantamweight and super bantamweight are only a few pounds apart, which makes their meeting in the ring a possibility.

If these two juggernauts did square off, it would undoubtedly be the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history and make for a massive Riyadh Season show in December.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.