Tapales: I Did Not Come To Japan Just To Give Inoue A Good Fight; I Came To Win

There is no intention to merely give it a go or dare to be great.

Marlon Tapales is here to shock the world.

That is the message that has been sent from the moment the 31-year-old Filipino southpaw set his sights on Naoya Inoue, whom he will face in a four-belt junior featherweight unification bout this Tuesday at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. Tapales entered the ring in the very same venue five months ago to congratulate Inoue on his win over Philadelphia’s Stephen Fulton.

Now he returns to make history for his native Philippines.

“I did not come to Japan just to give Inoue a good fight,” insisted Tapales. “I came to Japan to win.”

Tapales (37-3, 19KOs) risks his unified IBF and WBA junior featherweight titles versus Yokohama’s Inoue (25-0, 22KOs), a pound-for-pound and generational talent who risks his WBC and WBO belts in Tuesday’s main event. Their bout will air live on Lemino in Japan, and atop a four-fight ESPN+ stream in the U.S. beginning at 3:00 a.m. EST/12:00 a.m. PST.

Main event ring walks are expected at 5:55 a.m. EST for the pair of newly crowned 122-pound titlists. Tapales upset previously unbeaten and unified titlist Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1, 9KOs) via split decision on April 8 in San Antonio, Texas. He became a two-division titlist that evening, having previously held the WBO bantamweight belt and already had a goal to become the first-ever boxer from the Philippines to fully unify a division.

Inoue moved from bantamweight—where he became the first Asian boxer to earn undisputed championship status at any weight in the three- or four-belt era—to effortlessly dethrone Fulton in his junior featherweight debut.

Their July 25 clash saw the 30-year-old become a four-division champion after a one-sided, eighth-round knockout. Fulton was applauded for taking the risk at a time when he could have remained in-house and in the U.S. for lower risk but also much lower paying options.  

Tapales is not at all interested in leaving Tokyo with any kind of participation trophy.

"Like I said, I want to win,” reiterated Tapales. “I will not win if I get sucked into being just a defensive fighter. I trained right (for this match). I know what I brought here. I will bring the fight [to Inoue].”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for krikya360.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox