Naoya Inoue Outpointed Akhmadaliev One Year Ago to Keep Undisputed Titles
Naoya Inoue beat Murodjon Akhmadaliev by unanimous decision on this date in 2025 and left Nagoya still the undisputed junior featherweight champion. The Monster did not need a knockdown. He needed 12 rounds of the version of himself that boxes when the knockout is not there.
The fight was Sept. 14, 2025, at IG Arena in Nagoya. Inoue defended the WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO, and The Ring titles at 122 pounds and moved to 31-0 with 27 knockouts.
Akhmadaliev, a 2016 Olympic bronze medalist from Uzbekistan, fell to 14-2. Two judges scored it 118-110. The third had it 117-111.
It was only the fourth time Inoue had heard the final bell as a professional and the first full 12 since his 2019 fight of the year with Nonito Donaire. He had been dropped in two of his previous four fights. The plan in Nagoya was not to trade with a southpaw who could punch.
“I’m not sure how this fight would have turned out if I had fought it the way he wanted to fight it in the first round,” Inoue said. “My team put together a great fight plan focusing on my technique and speed, and that’s what delivered the result.”
He started cagey. The middle rounds were his. The jab and the straight right opened the guard, and the body work slowed the challenger every time Akhmadaliev tried to plant.
Akhmadaliev had stretches. He landed rights in the fifth and a burst in the sixth that put Inoue on the ropes. Inoue answered with a left hook to the liver and took the fight back.
The last 10 seconds of round 12 produced the photograph The Ring still circulates. Akhmadaliev landed a right hook that moved the champion’s head. Inoue held his feet, heard the bell, and collected every belt he walked in with.
“I can fight smart if I want to,” Inoue said.
That was the point of the night. The knockout artist chose not to hunt the finish against a man who would have welcomed the chaos. Speed and distance did the work instead.
Junto Nakatani sat ringside as the other Japanese pound-for-pound problem at the weight. Inoue told the crowd his next date would be Saudi Arabia in December. The division kept waiting on the domestic superfight that still defines the 122-pound conversation a year later.
Akhmadaliev left with credit and no title. He had come to take the belts by forcing Inoue into a brawl. Inoue refused the invitation for 35 minutes and 50 seconds, then survived the one clean shot that arrived too late to matter.
One year on, the cards have not moved. Undisputed stayed in Japan because The Monster decided, for one night, that winning ugly was not required. Winning clearly was enough.