Nonito Donaire checked in at his heaviest weight since returning to bantamweight more than three years ago.

The four-division champion and future Hall of Famer still managed to weigh in comfortably within the divisional limit for his long-awaited rematch with Naoya Inoue, weighing a ripped 117.8 pounds. Inoue hit the bantamweight mark right at 118 pounds for their three-belt unification bout Tuesday evening (local time) at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Inoue will put his WBA and IBF titles on the line, while Donaire attempts the second defense of his WBC belt that he reclaimed more than a year ago. ESPN+ will air the show live in the U.S. beginning 5:30 a.m. ET, while the card streams live on Amazon Prime Video in Japan.

The two meet for the first time since their unforgettable 12-round superfight in November 2019, which also took place at Saitama Super Arena. Inoue (22-0, 19KOs) unified the IBF and WBA titles with a well-earned unanimous decision which served as the finals of the World Boxing Super Series Bantamweight Tournament.

Inoue just claimed the IBF belt with a second-round knockout of unbeaten Emmanuel Rodriguez just one fight prior in the semifinal round of the WBSS. Donaire set the bantamweight record as the oldest fighter in history to win a title after stopped Ryan Burnett via injury after four rounds in the WBSS quarterfinals in November 2018.

Donaire would break his own record one fight after losing to Inoue, waiting out the pandemic and other factors in steamrolling unbeaten WBC bantamweight titlist Nordine Oubaali inside of four rounds last May 29. The feat saw Donaire, now 39, enter his third bantamweight title reign, defending the belt with a fourth round knockout of unbeaten interim WBC titlist Reymart Gaballo in their title consolidation clash last December 11.

Both wins over Oubaali and Gaballao took place at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. Donaire—a Fil-Am superstar now based out Las Vegas—previously held titles at flyweight, bantamweight, junior featherweight and featherweight, along with an interim reign at junior bantamweight.

Inoue is a three-division champion, having beaten the consensus number one fighter at junior flyweight and junior bantamweight before settling in at bantamweight in 2018. The highly-ranked pound-for-pound entrant from Yokohama crashed the division with a first-round knockout of Jamie McDonnell in their May 2018 secondary WBA bantamweight title fight. He defended the belt with a 70-second destruction of former WBA champ Juan Carlos Payano to open the WBSS tournament in October 2018 before collecting the IBF title and the full WBA strap by November 2019.

Three unified title defenses have followed for Inoue, scoring knockout wins over Jason Moloney, Michael Dasmarinas and—most recently—Aran Dipaen. The win over Dipaen came last December 14 in Tokyo, Inoue’s first fight in his home country since his prior win over Donaire.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for krikya360.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox