Takuma Inoue

Bio

Right then, Takuma Inoue is a champion who has spent his career being introduced as someone else's brother. That ends on Saturday at the Tokyo Dome. The younger Inoue holds the WBC bantamweight world title, sits at 21-1 with five knockouts, and is one of the slickest technicians at 118 pounds. Make no mistake, this is a legitimate world-level talent in his own right.

Where his older brother Naoya is a destroyer, Takuma is a tactician. He's a beautiful counter-puncher, his timing is elite, and his jab is genuinely one of the best in the bantamweight division. He's not going to walk through opponents — but he's going to outbox almost anyone you put in front of him, and that's exactly what he's done for the better part of a decade now.

Saturday's title defence against Kazuto Ioka, on the undercard of his brother's super-fight against Junto Nakatani, is the platform he has been waiting for. A classy win against a four-weight world champion at the Tokyo Dome stops being "Naoya's brother" forever. He becomes Takuma Inoue, world champion in his own right. Brilliant pressure, brilliant moment.