YOKOHAMA, Japan—Marlon Tapales was kind of slighted when he was asked what concerns him the most about facing a legit hard-hitter like Naoya Inoue on Tuesday at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
“If I concentrate too much on defense and fight defensively, there’s no way I am going to win the fight,” Tapales said during Sunday’s press conference at the Yokohama Bay Sheraton Hotel and Towers.
“I came here to win and not survive,” Tapales added as the runup to his undisputed world super-bantamweight title duel nears with the Japanese pound-for-pound star.
Tapales will risk his World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation belts while Inoue will bring his—the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization straps–in a battle for supremacy in the star-studded 122-lb division.
The attention was on Inoue, widely considered as the best boxer regardless of weight, and Tapales and his team looked like a bunch of bit players during the affair that lasted less than an hour.
Tuesday’s collision between the two-belt punchers is not even tipped to go the full 12 rounds owing to Inoue’s enormous power and super skill set.
But Tapales, whose ammo is not as explosive as Inoue’s, remains a love underdog.
“Marlon’s got to land early to get Inoue’s respect,” said Sean Gibbons, giving special mention to his fighter’s underrated but potent left uppercut and describing it as a potential gamechanger.
Still, Inoue’s camp believes it would not matter as Tapales won’t withstand the impact of one crippling Inoue punch.
His people are so confident of victory that they didn’t even see the need for a rematch clause.
But Gibbons swears that they would be “glad to travel back to Japan” to give Inoue a rematch.
That would be a dandy.
