Inoue – Nery could come next year

The WBC has ordered that the winner of the undisputed super-bantamweight fight between Naoya Inoue (25-0, 22 KO’s) and Marlon Tapales (37-3, 19 KO’s), will have to defend his throne for the first time against former world champion Luis Nery (35-1, 27 KO’s).

Inoue will fight Tapales on December 26.

The interesting thing is that Nery was banned for life by the Japanese federation back in 2018 for not making weight in the rematch against Shinsuke Yamanaka, so if Inoue wins the Tapales fight, the JBC must lift Nery’s ban or Inoue’s co-promoter Bob Arum must make the fight outside of Japan.