Marlon Tapales enjoyed a far different weight-in experience than his previous trip to Japan.
The visiting Filipino was 121.2 pounds—nearly a full pound under the junior featherweight divisional limit—for his bid to become undisputed champion. He puts his WBA/IBF titles on the line versus unified WBC/WBO titlist Naoya Inoue, who was 121.6 pounds ahead of their scheduled twelve-round main event Tuesday at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
Inoue was slightly lighter than he was in his junior featherweight debut. The four-division champ weighed 121.7 pounds ahead of his one-sided, eighth-round knockout of then-unbeaten and unified WBC/WBO titlist Stephen Fulton on July 25 in this very venue where he now fights for a third straight time.
Tapales (37-3, 19KOs) returns to Japan for the first time in more than six years. His last trip ended in a knockout victory, though it also cut short his brief WBO bantamweight title fight. Tapales was a full two pounds over the bantamweight limit at 120 pounds, which forced him to vacate his title ahead of an eleventh-round knockout of Shohei Omori in their April 2017 clash in Osaka.
The 31-year-old southpaw from Kapatagan, Philippines won the WBA and IBF 122-pound belts from Uzbekistan’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev via split decision on April 8 in San Antonio, Texas. He immediately called for the winner of the forthcoming Fulton-Inoue title fight and flew to Tokyo to be present for Inoue’s destructive win earlier this summer.
Yokohama’s Inoue (25-0, 22KOs) aims to make history in a bid to become a two-division undisputed champion. A win on Tuesday will give him that distinction, just 53 weeks after he knocked out England’s Paul Butler in this arena to fully unify all four major bantamweight titles.
The 30-year-old pound-for-pound entrant has won major titles at junior flyweight, junior bantamweight, bantamweight and junior featherweight. Tuesday will mark his ninth consecutive fight where he competes with two or more major titles at stake. Overall, Inoue is 18-0 (16KOs) in primary title fights, along with a pair of first-round knockouts with the secondary WBA ‘Regular’ bantamweight title at stake.
Inoue dethroned the consensus number-one ranked fighter at all but bantamweight to win his titles. He was already the highest ranked in the world at the time of each of his two wins over Nonito Donaire, who was widely regarded as a firm number-two ahead of each of their two meetings. Inoue beat Donaire to defend the IBF title and win the WBA belt in their November 2019 unification bout and then via second-round knockout to add the WBC belt last June
Inoue-Tapales will air live on Lemino in Japan, and atop a four-fight ESPN+ stream in the U.S. beginning at 3:00 a.m. ET/12:00 a.m. PT. Main event ring walks are expected at 5:55 a.m. ET.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox