Naoya Inoue feasts on the overmatched Ye Joon Kim; outings in Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia to follow

TOKYO, Japan – The smile that South Korea’s Ye Joon Kim flashed at the camera as he stepped into the ring and awaited the arrival of Naoya Inoue inside the Ariake Arena wasn’t fooling anyone. Facing Inoue, one of the sport’s premier badasses, is a formidable ask even when months have been spent preparing for the challenge. Kim, a substitute hauled in at 10 days’ notice following the withdrawal of Sam Goodman, surely knew what was to come.

Kim took the call to step in for Goodman while in the midst of a 6km run. Upon accepting the invitation, he upped the duration of his run to 10km. Inside the ring, with only “The Monster” for company, how he must have wished for that open road. There was precious little room to go anywhere as the 31-year-old Inoue – the world junior featherweight king – made the battleground small as he probed, waited, and observed.

If the impossibility of Kim’s mission hadn’t been obvious in that first session, it became abundantly clear in the second. A leaping straight right speared the midsection of Kim, a right disguised as a left upon launch then slammed through Kim’s guard and landed with a thwack on his face. 

Inoue, choosing to take his time, invited his jab to the party in the third while plunging blows into Kim’s body. But the challenger, to everyone’s surprise, returned to his stool at the completion of nine minutes. Kim showed ambition in the fourth, even landing sporadically. Every time, however, he was punished for such audacity. Rights and lefts suddenly hit the target and Kim, whose smile had long since disappeared, rocked and rolled as the disparity in levels was cruelly exposed.

A straight right cross, set up by a flashing left, bulleted into Kim’s face and the fight, such as it was, essentially ended on impact. Kim tumbled with such force it looked like only the ropes stopped him from crashing out of the ring and into the laps of the wide-eyed crowd. What had been presumed a horrible mismatch upon inception proved to be just that at 2-25 of the fourth.

Afterwards, the always classy Inoue, 29-0 (25 KOs), thanked Kim, 21-3-2 (13 KOs), for stepping in and taking the beating. 

“I am pretty sure 2025 is going to be the big year for me,” Inoue said. “This is the year I will go overseas. In Spring I will be in Las Vegas to show you a great match… I will fight in Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia this year.”

“Another great performance by our champion here,” said his promoter Bob Arum. “At least for one fight, the country of Japan will give the great Inoue to the city of Las Vegas this Spring.”