Garcia Eyes Tokyo Training Sessions With Inoue

Ryan Garcia has expressed a desire to train with Naoya Inoue during an upcoming visit to Tokyo, indicating he intends to stream the workouts if they come together.

Garcia stopped short of confirming Inoue had agreed to the sessions, and there has been no announcement from the Japanese champion's side regarding any collaboration.

The proposed pairing would bring together two of boxing's most prominent active champions across a significant weight gap — Garcia currently competing at welterweight and Inoue having built his undisputed reign at bantamweight/" class="internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2">super bantamweight, a difference of roughly 25 pounds between their natural fighting weights.

The idea of the two sharing a gym carries obvious appeal from a content and visibility standpoint — two unbeaten or near-unbeaten world champions from different ends of the weight spectrum, with Garcia's social media reach and Inoue's reputation as one of the sport's most technically complete fighters making for a compelling combination regardless of what the sessions actually produce.

Whether it materialises depends entirely on Inoue's interest and availability, neither of which has been publicly confirmed. Garcia has a September 12 fight against Conor Benn to prepare for — a WBC welterweight title defence that represents the most significant contest of his championship reign — which would ordinarily make the timing of an overseas training excursion something his team would need to manage carefully.