Naoya Inoue vs Paul Butler round by round results
Who will become the first ever undisputed bantamweight champion in a four-belt era? Find out below:
Paul Butler (34-2, 15KO) meets ‘Monster’ Naoya Inoue (23-0, 20KO) at the Ariake Arena in tokyo, Japan, on December 13.
The bout will crown the first ever undisputed bantamweight champion in a four-belt era. The last undisputed titlist at 118lbs was Enrique Pinder when he defeated Rafael Herrera in 1972 – over 50 years ago!
Full fight report below:
Inoue vs Butler
Round 1: The tone is set early as home fighter Naoya Inoue immediately goes on the front foot and makes his power felt to both head and body, showing his variety and jabbing nicely.
Briton Butler quickly goes on the defensive, as widely expected, but he’s unwisely already eaten some big shots from the Japanese ‘Monster’, including a left hook upstairs and a spearing left to the body near the ropes. However, the experienced Ellesmere Port man has actually managed to absorb a lot of the bigger blows off the gloves.
Inoue is jabbing to the body a lot in an attempt to open his counterpart up, who is tucking up and defending well to start with.
Round 2: Inoue continues to stalk his opponent and attack the body, twice backing him up against the ropes and letting his hands go in a blur of violent blows. This is the round that four-weight world champion and Filipino legend Nonito Doniare was stopped in the Inoue's last fight…
‘Baby Faced Assassin’ Butler did manage to land his own shot inside, but he’s struggling to put any kind of offensive together under such high pressure.
29-year-old three-weight world champion Inoue is cutting off the space so well here, trapping his opponent and then unleashing measured, stinging attacks to both head and body.
Butler needs to stay away from the ropes at all costs, but he can’t keep Inoue off him as he unloads yet another furious combination before the bell sounds in the second.
Round 3: Butler is instantly trapped in the corner at the start of the third segment and Inoue batters him with another barrage of thundering blows, including some vicious right hands.
Inoue is intent to finish this contest early, and he will acheive that if Butler allows that to happen again.
The sound of every shot he throws is chilling, even when it’s caught on the gloves.
Butler slightly brighter this round as he tries to let his own hands go for the first time, but doing so comes at significant risk against a pound-for-pound KO artist, who finishes the round strongly.
Round 4: Trainer Joe Gallagher urges his bantamweight charge to show some swagger, but that's not easy to do against such formidable opposition.
Inoue is walking Butler down all the time, completely controlling this one-sided contest and scoring punishing blows with both hands.
Butler is hanging in there still despite being dominated so badly' He's keeping his high guard in the hope of avoiding a knockout blow, but Inoue is having no difficulty penetrating his defence.
He soon becomes trapped in the corner again and takes more heavy punishment as Inoue lets rip with more spiteful flurries.
Round 5: Inoue takes his foot off the gas slighty in the fifth and adopts a more measured approach as he waits for opportunies to punish Butler with one big blow.
Inoue still throwing punches in bunches but most of them are hitting the gloves, just keeping his opponent busy and backed up.
Butler is aiming to keep away as much as possible, his game plan must be to survive the opening rounds where Inoue will expend more enrgy than him, then look to come on strong from the mid-rounds, but how likely is that going to work?
Round 6: Inoue wants Butler to start trading so he can find his knockout punch.
It's beginning to look like a glorified sparring session for Inoue, but the compact Butler’s evasive tactics and high guard are proving frustrating for him.
Inoue starts playing to the crowd a bit, completely comfortable in there, then switches to southpaw in a bid to obliterate that high guard.
Round 7: Still one-sided, Inoue still frustrated by a negative, mobile opponent. You can tell he really wants to but just can’t get the finish with Butler unwilling to engage.
There’s an Ali shuffle, more switching of stances, the unified champion trying to entertain the crowd, but he cannot find the knockout finish despite his best efforts.
Inoue even throws his hands in exasperation to pead with Butler to at least make a fight of this.
The Briton doesn’t take the bait, and it disappointingly becomes more and more evident that avoiding being stopped here seems to be his only goal in the fight.
The Chesire combatant did say that he believes Inoue leaves holes to expolit, so perhaps he will go looking for that if the Japanese fighter gets tired and vulnerable. Even then, Butler is not known for his power, so a KO win doesn't seem at all possible. He’s 7-0 down on the cards and just surviving.
Round 8: The eighth follows a similar pattern, with Inoue going back to his box of tricks and throwing so much at Butler to try and get him out of there.
The only success Butler is having is that he's clearly getting under Inoue’s skin and making the Asian angry and impatient.
Inoue mimics Roy Jones by putting his hands by his sides and goading his unwilling opponent, who still can’t be deterred from this completely defensive approach.
Inoue’s best work being done when he slips inside, rattling off some thudding blows to the body in particular.
Butler does manage to fire in some body shots in that round. could this be a glimpse of his game plan to come on strong in the championship rounds?
Round 9: Despite the slight success from the Brit in the eighth, it continues to be one-way traffic from Inoue, who’s showing great speed, footwork and variety as always. It's only Butler’s apparent gameplan to avoid the knockout at all costs that means Inoue can’t find those finishing shots.
Butler eats a big shot straight down the middle. too many more of them and it's game over.
Inoue looks lie he could end this fight at any given time, but he just can't get throw with his equalizer.
Round 10: One or two signs that Butler might be getting more adventurous here as he lets his hands go a couple of times, attacking to the body, trying to drain Inoue’s energy, who has obviously expended far more so far in this one-sided fight. For UK fans there's a glimmer of hope Butler may be a genius, but it's a very small glimmer.
Round 11: Inoue steps on the gas at the start of the penultimate round, desperate to keep his knockout streak intact… and he does!
Inoue paws out a jab to push Butler into the corner, then unleashes a sickening right hook to the body, which was as audibly brutal as it was to the eye. Butler pivots to his left but he's hurt so Inoue onloads a barrage of blows, beginning with a big one-two, to the head of Butler on the ropes and he can't get up again. It was the first right hand to the head that did the final damage to the brave Briton.
Referee Bence Kovacs counts him out at 1:09 of round 11. It took some time, but he got there in the end!
A superb achievement for arguably the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, who makes history as the first undisputed bantamweight champion this century.
Other Results:
Liverpool’s 2020 Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medalist Peter McGrail chalked up his sixth professional win with a stylish second-round knockout of Hironori Miyake. Full fight report HERE
Landy Cris Leon retired in the second round of his meeting with Satoshi Shimizu.
Andy Hiraoka stopped Min Ho Jung in round eight with a wicked left uppercut early on in the round. Jung returned to his feet but was very unsteady and Hiraoka nailed him with a right uppercut before swinging round with the left as the finishing blow. Explosive stuff from Hiraoka to move up to 22-0 as a pro with his 17th career knockout.
