Naoya Inoue targets featherweight move instead of Rodriguez

The undisputed champion is tired of waiting for Bam Rodriguez, putting their planned superfight in doubt.

Naoya Inoue announced on social media that he is now moving up to the featherweight division instead of waiting any longer for Jesse Rodriguez.

After Naoya Inoue successfully defended his junior featherweight title in May, he stated that he would be taking a break for the time being. In the days that followed, Turki Alalshikh spoke of a superfight between Naoya Inoue and Jesse Rodriguez that he would like to organize. Both fighters agreed to the matchup, and according to reports, the fight was even scheduled to take place in early 2027.

However, Jesse Rodriguez’s trainer announced that his protégé would still like to fight a bout in the bantamweight division before facing Naoya Inoue. This planned bout had apparently already been scheduled, but its future is now once again uncertain. Jesse Rodriguez’s manager is aware of this and said in an interview with Fight Hub TV:

“We’ve heard that Inoue is not going to wait, at least reach out to us and let us know; If ‘Bam’ Rodriguez fights in December, let’s figure out April or May of [2027], we could do it and then he moves up”

Naoya Inoue responded relatively quickly and posted a message on social media in which his intentions became quite clear.

“I have no intention of sitting around waiting for Bam, so I'm going to start getting ready to move up to featherweight”

he wrote.

This means the scheduled mega-fight will likely fall through, which is, of course, sad news for some. Fortunately, Naoya Inoue can still have some very interesting matchups in the featherweight division; we’ll just have to wait and see who it ends up being.