Japan’s Naoya Inoue became the second male boxer to be a four-belt undisputed champion in two weight divisions with a 10th-round knockout of Marlon Tapales in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Inoue unified the super-bantamweight titles of all four major sanctioning bodies, taking the WBA and IBF crown from Tapales and retaining the WBC and WBO belts he won in July.
“I think [junior featherweight] is my weight class for now so, in 2024, I would like to show myself at [junior featherweight] in even stronger form,” Inoue said after the fight. “I am so happy that I got the knockout in such a decisive manner.”
The 30-year-old unified all four belts in the bantamweight division last December with victory over Paul Butler before vacating those titles and moving up to his current weight class. The only other man to achieve the feat is American Terence Crawford, the current welterweight undisputed champion, who previously unified the four major belts in the light-welterweight class.
“[Tapales] never showed me fatigue or damage from his face, so I was quite surprised when he went down in the 10th round,” said Inoue. “It was one of the most intense fights I’ve had before, probably, but my corner cheered me up and kept me focused throughout the bout.”
In women’s boxing, Claressa Shields (middleweight and light-middleweight) and Katie Taylor (lightweight and light-welterweight) have achieved the same feat.
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Inoue, the first Asian two-division undisputed champion, is 26-0 as a professional and has previously been a world champion in two other weight classes, having won the WBC championship in light-flyweight and the WBO title in junior-bantamweight.
