Having become the ninth fighter to unify all major titles since boxing's four-belt era began in 2004, Japan's Naoya Inoue is looking to go one better as the first to accomplish the feat in two weight classes.
"I believe I'm going to aim for it," Inoue said after concluding his bantamweight tenure by unifying his own WBA, WBC and IBF belts with Briton Paul Butler's WBO crown with a knockout Tuesday in Tokyo.
"We'll need to develop a thorough plan."
Inoue, nicknamed "Monster," appears headed for his next fight in either April or May. Uzbekistan's Murodjon Akhmadaliev, 11-0 as a pro, and American Stephen Fulton, who is 21-0, are both champions in two different sanctioning bodies.
Beating either fighter would bring Inoue two of the 55-kilogram super bantamweight division's championships. Inoue, who usually weighs around 63 kg, struggled to make the 53.5-kg weight for the Butler fight.
A super bantamweight title would give Inoue championships in four different weight classes and make him the second Japanese to manage that after Kazuto Ioka did it in 2019.
Ioka needed two title fights to win his fourth weight class championship, but Hideyuki Ohashi, the chairman of Inoue's Ohashi Boxing Gym, expressed optimism that his fighter could achieve that goal while remaining unbeaten.
"The higher he moves up in weight class, the more his quality stands out," Ohashi said.
Inoue, who will turn 30 in April, shares chairman Ohashi's enthusiasm and has indicated that super bantamweight is not the limit to his boxing ambitions.
"I can go as far as featherweight," the fighter has said.
Winning championships in five weight classes would match the accomplishment of the Philippines' Nonito Donaire, who Inoue beat for the second time in June.
Considering his remarkable successes up to this point, it would be wise not to discount what Inoue says.
Related coverage:
Boxing: Undisputed bantamweight champ Inoue to go up to super bantam
Japanese boxer Inoue becomes undisputed bantamweight champion with KO
