NAOYA INOUE VS MURODJON AKHMADALIEV - FULL FIGHT PREVIEW

“Everyone is beatable” is a cliché often used in boxing, and the majority of the time it’s pretty accurate.

Only legends like Joe Calzaghe, Andre Ward, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Rocky Marciano have retired without a blemish on their record.

In this day and age though, with participation in the sport as high as it’s ever been, it’s rare.

However, if there is one man — or probably two, when you throw Oleksandr Usyk into the mix — who looks a near enough dead cert to hang the gloves up without a loss on his record, it’s Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue.

Thirty fights, thirty wins, twenty-seven by way of stoppage — there’s a reason why he’s known as “The Monster.”

A four-weight world champion and a two-weight undisputed champion, not even Andrew Lloyd Webber could write a fairytale like this.

Having beaten the likes of Nonito Donaire, Stephen Fulton, TJ Doheny and Luis Nery, he now comes up against arguably the toughest opponent of his career this weekend in Uzbek Murodjon Akhmadaliev.

A standout amateur, he won bronze at the Olympics and World Championships, and he’s transitioned that ability into the pros particularly well with 14 wins and 11 stoppages from his 15 fights in the paid ranks to date. His only loss came to Marlon Tapales in a less-than-impressive performance from the Uzbek.

That defeat seems to have given him the kick up the backside he needed, and since then he’s won all three of his fights by stoppage — form that has now earned him a shot at the ferocious puncher that is Naoya Inoue.

We questioned whether MJ is Inoue’s toughest opponent to date — and in reality, he most certainly is.

A crafty southpaw who can whack, if there’s a style that could fluster Inoue, it’s his.

He’s like a little Uzbek Duracell bunny, throwing the majority of his shots with bad intentions. Very similar to Inoue in that respect, but the Japanese star is much more reliant on his counter-punching before jumping all over opponents when he senses blood. By contrast, MJ wants to push you back and make your life hell — which sets us up for a real clash of styles.

As he’s started doing more of late, Inoue is going to have to be a lot more patient.

Only one of his last seven wins has come inside the opening four rounds.

Even though Akhmadaliev’s engine is one of his stronger traits, Inoue needs to take this fight deep, because if he gets carried away like he did in his last fight against Ramon Cardenas — when he was dropped in round two — he’ll come unstuck. If MJ hurts you, he’s too good to let you off the hook.

As for the Uzbek, he needs to start quickly and use a combination of what he learnt in the amateurs and what he’s picked up in the pros to his advantage.

Start quick, but don’t be reckless. Try to prise something out of Inoue, get reads on him early, and don’t allow him to adapt to what you’re throwing his way.

Inoue will have the crowd massively on his side, so every jab will sound like he’s just knocked someone out cold — MJ cannot be intimidated by that.

Take the crowd away from Inoue, make them nervous, and you’re on your way to a potential upset.

At the time of writing, Akhmadaliev is an enormous outsider with the bookies — which we find truly baffling.

It’ll be hard to get a points win against Inoue in Japan, but if there’s anyone who can stop him, or even make it such a convincing victory that the judges have no choice but to give it to him, it’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev.