Naoya Inoue, who holds the WBA and IBF bantamweight belts, faces the 39-year-old Nonito Donaire, the WBC bantamweight champion in a unification matchup on Tuesday at the Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan.
In their first fight on 7 November 2019, in the final of the World Boxing Super Series, Inoue won on a unanimous 12-round points decision with scores of 117-109, 116-111, and 114-113.
At the time, the 36-year-old Donaire (42-6; 28) from the Philippines, who fights out of Las Vegas, showed that he still had plenty left against one the best fighters in the world.
In an outstanding career he has world titles at flyweight, junior bantamweight, bantamweight, and junior featherweight.
However, the difference between the fighters was the speed of Inoue (22-0; 19), who scored a knockdown with a shot to the body in the 11th round.
Since then, Donaire has only had two fights; a fourth-round knockout over Nordine Oubali to win the WBC bantamweight belt, and another fourth-round knockout against Reymart Gaballo on 11 December 2021 when he retained the belt.
Since the Donaire fight Inoue, who is nicknamed "The Monster", has scored knockout wins over Jason Moloney, Michael Dasmarinas, and Aran Dipaen to retain his belts.
Donaire is a legend but, at the age of 39, it is possibly one fight too far.
Some scribes are predicting a late-round stoppage win for Inoue.