It’s a potentially huge fight between two of the sport’s little guys and, with luck (and plenty of work from the respective promoters, etc) it could happen: Naoya Inoue, the reigning and unbeaten WBA bantamweight champion, against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, the reigning WBC super-fight-flyweight champ. Who wouldn’t want to see this one!
Thai fighter Rungvisai will take a keep-busy non-title fight in his homeland next month, up at bantamweight (against 38 year old Young Gil Bae, 28-6-2), and maybe, if the southpaw likes the feel of the bantamweight division, he could opt to stay there – and this would make the super-fight between Rungvisai and Inoue that much easier (in theory) to make.
“Monster” Inoue is a terrific fighting machine, the 25 year old seemingly without weakness. Rungvisai, 45-4-1(40) is a relentless punching machine with seemingly limitless stamina and toughness. Put them together and you have a guaranteed epic, an explosion of greatness. Would Japan’s Inoue, 16-0(14) have too much power for Rungvisai, as he has had for every other fighter he has thus far met, or would the six years older man prove too teak-tough and too strong for the man who has had less than half as many pro fights as he had engaged in?
I don’t know about you, but I’d pay good money to get an answer. For so many years, the little guys, the little warriors of the sport, have taken a back seat to the heavyweights, middleweights and welterweights. This is unlikely to change, but for one night only the world’s fan attention would be firmly on the 118 pound division – if these two fought.
Can you think of a more evenly matched, tough-to-pick fight between rival world champions right now?
Inoue has left carnage behind him in winning world titles at three different weights, while Rungvisai has given us a FOTY candidate with his thrilling win over Roman Gonzalez, along with a chilling KO of his own in the return fight with Gonzalez. Just imagine the sheer excitement these two small giants would give us if they shared the same ring!
