By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
For Johnriel Casimero’s camp, he has yet to reach his ultimate goal despite prevailing over the undefeated Ghanian Duke Micah in just three rounds.
It is pretty obvious. Casimero and Manny Pacquiao (MP) Promotions wants the Japanese Monster.
They want to chase Naoya Inoue and have a bantamweight unification showdown to determine who will reign supreme.
Originally slated on April 25, 2020, the blockbuster fight between the two best bantamweights was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and organizers tried hard to keep the fight plausible but the Japanese camp did not respond and was silent the past months.
Despite Casimero flying to the US with high hopes that Inoue will do the same and meet him halfway, the Japanese champ decided to remain in Japan and let the promoters do their job.
Casimero only accepted to fight Micah after Top Rank Promotions head honcho Bob Arum confirmed that Inoue won’t be fighting and will have to be replaced by another fighter as not to waste Casimero’s stay in the US.
MP president Sean Gibbons tried to reach out to the Inoue camp and according to him, was initially met with optimism that the fight would come through. It was only after Inoue’s camp went silent when he confirmed that the bout was not to be.
“And then there’s the Japanese turtle, wherever he’s hiding you have to come out of your shell. The turtle has to come out of his shell. He’s hiding in Japan. We haven’t seen this guy in seven months. Bob Arum has him hidden in the bed somewhere. He has to let Inoue out of the closet,” said Gibbons.
