Punches and Punchlines
Punches and Punchlines
The Rise of Naoya Inoue: Boxing Legends, Broadcast Blunders, and Upcoming Showdowns
Naoya Inoue’s latest fight against Yijun Kim highlights the unmatched skill and strategy that place him at the top of boxing. We explore not only Inoue's impressive performance but also the dynamics of taunting, resilience in the ring, and the latest fighting events you shouldn't miss. As always, the boys break down all the fights... with a sense of humor.
• Naoya Inoue's dominance as the undisputed fighter is discussed
• Playing boxing, as always, is brought to you by zippixtoothpicks.com Use code Punch10 for 10% off
• Kim’s inspiring background adds depth to the fight's narrative
• An overview of the recent Mexican boxing card showcases ups and downs
• We preview upcoming fights such as Benavidez vs. Morrell
• Will Fritz be able to answer this weeks trivia question?!
Welcome to Punches and Punchlines, where we break down the best in boxing with a sense of humor. And now your hosts, ritz and Franco.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody to this episode of Punches in the Punchline. Just this past Friday we had one of the pound-for-pound best in the world defend his undisputed 122-pound status. And anytime this guy fights I'm excited, franco, it reminds me why I love boxing. It's just boxing at its best. There's no flaws in Noyoya Inoue's game and anytime I see his name on a schedule it's exciting. You know that you're in for just a show of skill, speed, power, defense. There's zero holes in this guy's game. And other than Alexander Usyk, I don't know if I put anybody higher than no anyway on the pound for pound list on planet earth, and it was fun to watch this one it was so much fun.
Speaker 1:It was it's sanctioned murder. At this point, fritz, he really is the monster I love. I love watching him, and not not just because I'm super biased towards japanese, but he is legitimately good, and it's nice for someone who's Japanese to be legitimately good, because I'm always rooting for guys that are Japanese and then sometimes they're kind of mid and it's like Shohei Otani, where it's like, oh, they really are the best. I'm not just cheering for some mid card guy. Anyway is awesome. This fight was awesome, uh, but I wanted to see what you thought about the taunting uh on on kim's part from this fight oh, we'll get into it, franco, because, uh, you know it's one of those be careful what you wish for things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beside that fight, why we wanted to come back to do an episode was because there was also a card in mexico on saturday that you know, anytime we have free boxing we're going to be episode was because there was also a card in mexico on saturday that you know, anytime we have free boxing we're going to be tuning in and there was an absolute banger of a fight in that on that undercard. And then there was a main event that uh, I have a couple notes on that we can chat about, but it was definitely uh, it peaked, that card peaked early and uh, it was kind of a whimper at the end it was more of a wet fart, but yeah, whimper is a nicer way next, uh, next week, we have a big pay-per-view of david benavidez on prime video uh, pay-per-view.
Speaker 2:So I definitely wanted to discuss our thoughts on that. Discuss our buddy, no, yo, anyway. And we got some bonus stuff to talk about from mexico. Yeah, let's get into it. They tell us all the time that you can't play boxing. We prove them wrong every episode with our segment called playing boxing. As you might know, playing boxing is brought to you by the people over at zipix toothpicks. Go over to zipix toothpickscom. Enter the code. Enter the code punch 10. Save yourself a few bucks bucks on some toothpicks. That'll help you quit smoking. So maybe eventually we can. Can we throw that link in the description, franco? Is that a possibility or is that too much of a pain in the ass?
Speaker 2:I think people can type it or Google it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can put the link in the description as well. As you know, sometimes we can mark our chapters. If you have it up on your radio right now, like if you're driving, glance over and it might show the code, the famous punch 10 code should be right there on the screen. Sometimes I can get it up on the screen, sometimes I can't, but sometimes you can get it up.
Speaker 2:That's where we're going to cut that sentence off.
Speaker 1:I'm the one that does the editing. We will make sure we say the full statement that's true.
Speaker 2:That's one of the benefits you have of being the guy that does all the work. Frank, go right there. Um, so I wanted to lead off just with no yo anyway, taking on ye june kim. And now, to kim's credit, he was a late replacement. Uh, he had 11 days notice when the previous opponent got cut during sparring and couldn't, uh, continue on with the main event. So this was the fight of kim's life.
Speaker 2:But you saw right from the get-go that they love to say it, uh, that there's levels to this game and you can see that kim is a good fighter. All right, uh, they were giving us this whole background story that he's, he's an orphanage. When he turned it, when he finally was an adult, he was able to move out of the orphanage. You know, that's what made him want to fight was everybody was making fun of him, that he never got adopted. So I'm like, as a person, I'm rooting for this guy, but I was like there's no way you're going to beat the monster, like, no, anyway is is the guy. You know what I mean? Did this last until the fourth round? Right, yeah, and right before he had his lights put out, like you were saying, he was kind of taunting no anyway. And looking back now maybe he was just like all right, I'm hurt, just get it over with. Yeah, all right, I'm hurt, just finish it over with. Yeah, just get it over with. Let me be a highlight reel. Put me on sports center. Uh, I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 2:I gave it my best because the reason that headshot landed that literally got me out of my seat was because of rounds. One through three anyway was just landing to the body and you could almost feel it. You know through your speakers how hard it was being hit. It was like, oh god, every one of those is rearranging his internal organs. This is, this is going to be tough. Nobody's getting to mourn him because he doesn't have any family. We're going to hell. Yeah, each one of those body shots was making making his guard drop down a little lower after the. You know you start protecting the body too much. He just left that that head open. That shot. I give him credit for even making the attempt to get up. He didn't beat the 10 count, but he was trying. Yeah and uh, he hung in there longer than I would. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:And the dude definitely has heart, and I want to see Yijun Kim fight again, but maybe somebody at his level, because he's not at the Tom Profound elite on planet Earth level. He's just like a regular mortal that was taking on a thunder. God, it was incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did feel bad for Kim, but also you know a thunder god. It was incredible. Yeah, I I did feel bad for kim, but also you know what? Batman was an orphan and he was still able to take on all sorts of of monsters and defeat them. Uh, but it was not happening for kim. I think the difference is money, like maybe if he would have entered the squid game in one, then he would have been able to beat Inouye, but you know what props to him because he stepped into the fight. It's a last minute uh addition and you're going against one of the best, the most elite people in the world.
Speaker 1:Sam Goodman is the guy that Inouye was supposed to fight and one of the things that was kind of starting to irritate me a little bit. Just on everything on social media, on regular media, anybody that has an agenda or that just doesn't pay attention to boxing enough, uh was coming in and saying crazy stuff about how, in a way, is you know he's? He's cherry picking his opponents. He's doing all this stuff and it's like I can say that about certain fighters, even fighters that I like, like canelo, you cannot say that about. Anyway, he's undisputed in multiple weight categories. Dude is a fighting champion. He fights a couple you know what, four times a year, five times a year. It seems like he's fighting all the time, at 3 AM our time, uh, but, but he takes these fights.
Speaker 1:Sam Goodman dropped out three times from this fight and oh, what's that? Oh, I just saw in my feed. He dropped out a fourth time because the knockout from this fight. And oh, what's that? Oh, uh, I just saw in my feed. He dropped out a fourth time because the knockout from this fight was so brutal he fell off his chair and he ended up hurting his back. So he's, he's out again. Sam Goodman, go to hell. I hope he never gets the fight. I hope he doesn't get the payday.
Speaker 1:Uh, and anyway, I feel like the only way that people who won't give him his props will give him his props is if he were to move up like 10 weight classes and fight Usyk, canelo T-Bud, fight them all in like one night, and then people will be like well, I guess he is pretty good, like he's clearing out his weight divisions. Just because we're not familiar with the names Doesn't mean that that he, those people, aren't good. He can't just grow Like it's not, like anyway, can just add a couple inches to his height, cause if he could, I would have already done that for it. But instead here we are, uh, us short Kings just dominating the world. Uh, anyway, one of my favorite fighters. Anybody who hasn't seen him, you have to check him out. Just even go and watch a highlight package. I know we say this every time we talk about him, but he really is that much fun to watch.
Speaker 2:Right, he's that guy. Like there's reasons. Like I've said before, when I was watching Tommy Hurts as a kid I was like, oh, I love boxing. You know, like this could Naoya Inoue could and should be that guy. For somebody just coming into boxing now, for kids watching it, like I can certainly see them being like oh, naoya Inoue, that's my guy. He's just the whole time I've been watching him since World Boxing Super Series. It's been a joy. The dude has zero holes in his game, just destroys people. It's so, so fun to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like there was a one fight on that card before him that I was just like, nah, so if anybody's got espn plus you can you still check out the replay, but you don't even need to watch that. That prelim fight. It was just okay boxing that went the went the distance one guy trying to survive and one guy trying to win. You know we've seen that fight play out uh a bunch of times before. So I don't want you to waste your time, I just gave you the whole fight there in a few sentences.
Speaker 1:You know, and if anything, that might be one of the things that's keeping Inoue from getting too big internationally or maybe just here, specifically in the States. But his cards are treated in a really weird way. You will see it popping up in like top rank advertisements in ESPN advertisements, but again the hours that the fight is shown. That throws everything off. But then, even worse than that, I think one of the biggest things they didn't even like, on the card itself when I went back and I watched it, there was only that one fight and then they would cut away for long periods of time and just have people talking in a studio here stateside. And then there was also like a good 20 minutes where there's a fight going on and they're just showing it from like a security camera, like they're not. They're not even kind of showing the fight. It's super far away. You can yeah, I was crowd what the hell?
Speaker 2:I was trying to figure that out and I was like, is that an amateur fight? Like I wasn't sure whether people had on headgear, you know what I mean. So I was like, all right, well, I'll just fast forward till this is done. And then uh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Then got to the main event super weird though, like show us something. Anything but not, not just people talking in a studio here in the us about the fight yeah, and let's make this like a joy.
Speaker 2:You know, like joy, it will be our bread and we're gonna put the not so fun right here in the middle because omar chavez, the businessman, took on Misael Gonzalez. Did I have that right, misael? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Misael Okay, or Rodriguez.
Speaker 2:Now, this was contracted at a catchweight. This was supposed to be a big grudge match. Apparently they don't like each other. Blah, blah, blah. This was in Gonzalez's hometown. This was definitely a pro Misael audience because and the reason I knew that is because some of the fights that were on before this were really good and they seemed to get a whimper out of the crowd where I'm like why aren't you paying attention like this? This is good shit. But yeah, then when misael came out, then they were all uh into it. So this was just a catchweight fight that I didn't really care about either.
Speaker 2:Boxer Smaller man won because he had a bigger gas tank Omar Chavez. I don't know if I've ever seen him fight before and he had 48 wins coming into this. I'm not saying I know every boxer on planet Earth, but when I'm not familiar with you at all, it seems odd to me that you're in the main event you know what I mean like, oh for sure I've been. I've been a nerd for quite a while. Yeah, maybe I just was missing his part of the show before, but I do love that his dad, julio cesar chavez senior, was calling some of the action for azteca tv and everybody that won the fight. The first thing they would go do before they even went to their corner would go bump fists with julio cesar chavez.
Speaker 2:I'm like that is cool that he's still that love. You know what I mean. Like for sure that dude was a champion forever and it's cool that this generation still recognizes their guy. So I thought that was cool. But this fight was just very ho-hum. It's terrible. Yeah, I told people that will listen. I'm like you don't even have to check out the main event, like the. The undercard was where it was at, where this started out with a 17 year old girl. Yeah, that was the first fight that I saw 17 year old girl scores of awesome knockdown and I think the second or the third round where I was like, oh my god, this 102 pound woman, just girl not even you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like these were children fighting for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, one of them was a child and the other one was like a girl woman and, uh, she was 18, oh, was it? I thought she was like 22 or 17 against 18.
Speaker 1:We were watching small children fight. It was. It was awesome, but also I felt a little bit guilty.
Speaker 2:I I did too, but I thought it was good boxing, yeah, you know, especially for as early in their career as it is. Neither it wasn't sloppy like we've seen, you know, shit boxing. That wasn't this there, this was. I forget, it was camila against jocelyn perez, jocelyn perez and j. Yoseline Perez was definitely the aggressor early on, yeah, and until she did get knocked down, and then she's like all right, maybe, maybe I'll try to counter a little more because, uh, but it was a fun fight and you know it's the first time.
Speaker 2:I've ever seen. You know, a boxer take out their mouth guard and they have braces, you know I was like this yeah, just feels weird all the way around. But yeah, a 17 year old at 10 and 0. Now, I thought was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter was in the room when it came on and I looked at her and I go what are you doing? Like, oh, you gotta go play your clarinet. This kid is a year older than you and she's on tv boxing right now and my daughter goes. You know what I'm doing? I'm not doing that Like I get punched in the head, I'm good. And the whole time that I was watching it, that's all I could think of was my daughters, who are almost the same age as these two girls up on the screen, and also my students. They kept talking about how the one girl is still in high school, how Camila goes to class all day and then goes to the gym and trains from seven to ten every night, and it's like holy crap. The amount of commitment that that takes is insane. Road work from five to seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like they said, she does her. No, not like working on the road, like like her jogging and uh like that part of the training they said she did from five to seven.
Speaker 2:So this it showed in her skill level because she was definitely good. I don't know if she's going to be the next Amanda Serrano, but she was certainly the skill is there and clearly, from what they were saying, the dedication is there. So maybe it is somebody that we will see for the next. You know, 15, 20 years in the ring, that was. That was a fun fight. So anybody that's going to pull up the card from yesterday it was Omar Chavez versus Misi El Rodriguez was where you would find it in your ESPN app, but you don't even need to make it to the main event. Just watch Camila Zamorano versus Yoseline Perez.
Speaker 2:Then the fight of that cardanco. This, yeah, this was a joy, all right, because it had everything. It had one guy is the favorite coming out strong, and you know a couple times where the announcer's like, oh, I don't know, I don't know if this kid's gonna survive this round and then just to have the the fight completely flip. It turned into kind of a shit show in those late rounds. What were the guys' names? It was Jose Angel Amaro versus Luis Fernando Rodriguez.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Now Fernando Rodriguez. He had the Zerto on his short, so he's a lefty and he was the heavy favorite. I don't know about heavy favorite, but the announcers were saying that this was supposed to be his tune-up, to get back into title rankings and stuff like that. But amaro was doing was, you know, he was just chipping away, even when he was up against the ropes. You know he did look like he was in trouble early, but he was still getting his. Every so often he would, he would land his shots and then he started working that body and, like we said earlier, the guard started to come down and I think it was like the seventh, eighth, ninth and the you know. Finally it got called off in the 10th, but like seventh, eighth, ninth, maybe it was just the eighth and ninth there was knockdown scored franco, like I don't know what that, whether the ref was just rooting for rodriguez or know like, but he didn't do him any favors. Like a couple of those knockdowns. If they were called he at least would have got a standing eight count instead of, you know, just being thrown back to the wolves. You know Amaro was empty in the tank.
Speaker 2:There was a point where in the ninth round. I'm like all right, he's going down. And then the gloves touch the mat again and gets called a slip. And then the gloves touch the mat again and gets called a slip. Our guy, julio Cesar Chavez Sr, you know, is sitting on the ringside, just keeps getting out of his chair. He's like what are you talking about? Yeah, call a knockdown. Already, in a strange turn of events, it gets to the 10th. Rodriguez gets in trouble again and the ref waves it off in the first minute. This dude's corner was doing him no favors either, and neither was this ref. No, this dude's corner was doing him no favors either, and neither was this ref.
Speaker 1:No, I think. Actually the corner threw in the towel at the very end.
Speaker 2:Okay, did they.
Speaker 1:The announcers just weren't saying it, but it was in there, it was on the floor. I don't think the ref was going to stop it, I think he was just going to let him die. I don't know what Rodriguez did to him out in the parking lot, what he said to him when he checked his gloves, but there was like the biggest grudge match. They kept trying to hype it up that, oh you know, blah, blah, no, no, biggest grudge match was between the referee and uh and rodriguez, because I think he legitimately wanted him to die. It was, it was super weird, but the towel was thrown in okay, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:It definitely needed to be stopped. I thought it could have been stopped in the ninth and I would have had no problem with it during one of those knockdowns. I loved that fight. It was very fun. Just, you know, it had that twist where the guy had early was not ahead late. And you know, the guy that was counted out early was taking his time and landing the shots when he could. He didn't gas himself out early and had enough stamina to go to win it by knockout in the tent.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that the referee did the right thing and stepped in and stopped it, or that the corner threw in the towel or whatever it was, because dude just wasn't right, like for a good stretch of time and it got me to thinking again when we've talked about stoppages in the past and it's like, well, you know, I don't know that the ref should have stopped it, or the ref sees, you know, things from a better angle than this. For this fight, everybody in the venue, everybody at home, everybody, except for the referee, could see that the fight should have been stopped because he wasn't right for a long period of time. And as far as the slips, that was the only thing Amaro kept pushing down and it's like, well, that's why the referee isn't calling it a knockdown. And then there was one where he straight up hit him in the stomach, lifted dude up into the air and he hit the mat and the ref's like that one's a slip too and it's like all right now.
Speaker 1:Now you're just being kind of silly, like even I was on your side, referee with you know he should either stop it or something, but but with that one I was like there's no way in hell, that's a million percent of knockdown. It was a little bit exaggerated. So the fact that finally they threw in the towel and stopped it it, it made it feel better. But it was a great fight. It was no defense, all offense, they were just pouring it on and yeah, that swing, that change where at first I was thinking man Amaro's going to get killed in there if they don't stop this fight.
Speaker 1:And then I think it was the fifth round where it was almost like tag you're it, and then they flip for the rest of the fight. So very exciting, a lot of fun. If anybody hasn't seen it, it's a good one to check out. But uh, maybe check it out. On the spanish version of uh, you know, espn has the spanish version with the spanish announcers, because there were so many audio issues. Uh, we were having trouble trying to find people's names and find, like the box rec for stuff and that was all wonky. But, like just trying to figure out who these boxers were, there was nothing up on the screen. The microphones some were working, some weren't working and it's like who the hell are we watching? I'm being entertained, but the production for this one wasn't great. No-transcript. I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to blame ESPN. So if anybody does go back and watch it, check out the Spanish version. Let us know if that's any better, because the English version, the production, was asked. Somebody should get fired for it. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know if you noticed this, the one thing that the fight wasn't any good, but Omar Chavez, now his shorts. Did you watch the main event? Unfortunately I did. Yeah, so he had those shorts where it looked like I hope you know none, no real trolls were actually hurt in the making of those shorts, cause it looked like he had just skinned a hundred troll dolls and, you know, made stripes on his pants those. Did your kids watch the troll movie? Like whoever poppy, uh, like it was a perfect poppy hair right down the side of the trunk.
Speaker 1:Uh, they were awful.
Speaker 2:Maybe some, maybe some bingo hall has all old ladies now with, uh, just bald trolls, uh as their good luck charm, because yeah, they were all used to make this guy shorts. I was like his nickname is the businessman, I'm like His nickname is the businessman. I'm like I'm not doing business with troll hair guy. You know, yeah, no thanks at all.
Speaker 1:They were. They were hideous. They were. It was just bright, pink and white and then it didn't help. So I was going to say something about and I have zero evidence or proof of this. I was going to say something about Omar Chavez using steroids, because he was a little bit cut, he looked a little bit swoleole, but his back knee was crazy and unfortunately, because of the era that I grew up in, my first thought was, oh my god, that dude's on steroids. And then they like showed the rest of them and I'm like, oh no, he just he needs to go see a dermatologist. They got some stuff that'll clear that up. You know, like, uh, he just had really bad acne, but just wasn't helped by the pink and white trunks that he was wearing, and he's light-skinned.
Speaker 1:It was like come on, bro, like you're not doing yourself any favors with these horrible trunks yeah, you're making bad business decisions. Oh, business man now, uh, on a side note, I'm not gonna make fun of him too much because he is from sinaloa. I don't know what kind of connections he has, and so he tried. We'll just say that Good for him, but nobody was rooting for him, yeah.
Speaker 2:The fight I'm looking forward to next week we're going to get together on Saturday, february 1st is the pay-per-view headline David Benavidez versus David Morrell. I think that that's going to be a fun light heavyweight fight and it's also on that card is the rematch uh. Brandon figueroa versus stephen fulton jr all right now.
Speaker 2:that first one was a joy and it was a split decision that went to fulton and then fulton went and, uh, lost to, so I don't know if this is his first fight back or whether he took a fight in the interim, but this is a fun rematch that, if it's half as good as the first one, we'll at least be entertained.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it'll be a good pay-per-view. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pitbull Cruz is on that one Jesus Ramos versus Jenison Rosario. We haven't seen Rosario in quite a while, so it should be a good time to crack a couple beers, watch some dudes punch each other in the face. We'll definitely be back to cover that one for you guys. If anybody's looking for something to do next Saturday, it's a pay-per-view that looks like it will be worth the price.
Speaker 1:Now, fritz, last week or last episode, you had a trivia question for me. I have got a trivia question that. Not only do I have a good trivia question for today, I've had it sitting here on my computer for since we recorded last, like right away I was like oh, I know exactly what I'm going to ask. And it's been sitting here like the tabs have been open on my computer. I'm trying to do homework, I'm trying to do stuff for school, but mostly I was trying not to accidentally close out this tab.
Speaker 1:I want to forget my trivia question. So are you ready for your trivia question for this week, fritz?
Speaker 2:I am shoot.
Speaker 1:All right, this is the last weekend we got to see or yeah, we just got to see nayoya inuwe. Uh, nayoya inuwe is now 29 and oh, which of these fighters has nayoya inuwe not beat? All right, okay, all right, here we go. First one, emmanuel rodriguez. Number two, kohei kono. Choice number three, tai fam and choice number four, yuki sano I'm gonna go with yuki sano.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a anime character that is.
Speaker 1:I'm so disappointed, fritz. The answer is Ty Pham of the Green Lantern. He is the first Asian American Green Lantern character from Green Lantern Legacy, ty Pham.
Speaker 2:Okay, well done. That was something that I should have known. I needed to go into my kind of way back scene because I saw, saw that that issue and I was like, oh, I should order that, and then it must. It was a little more pricey than I wanted to spend on that day, so it's still something I'm gonna get. But, uh, yeah, good one, franco, you, you snuck it past me. Maybe I'll uh be able to do better next week the old breaking ball got you just yeah my, you know my area of expertise and you still snuck it past me so I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm so proud of myself right now yeah, you never know, but cool, yeah, thanks for everybody for tuning in, thanks for doing all the work. You are listening, whatever medium you're listening on. If they let you give a review, please give a review. Tell your friends. And, um, yeah, we'll be back next week after we watch the benavides morale. We'll be back to week after we watch the benavidez morel. We'll be back to break that down for you. And, uh, if you don't have anything else, franco, I'm throwing in the towel thank you for listening to punches and punchlines.
Speaker 1:Make sure to like, subscribe and follow and we'll see you next week when we break down the best in boxing with a sense of humor.