Naoya Inoue had barely finished making Murodjon Akhmadaliev look ordinary, before turning his attentions towards the end of the year and sowing seeds before a potential Junto Nakatani megafight in early 2026.

The undisputed junior featherweight champion, third on The Ring's pound-for-pound list behind fellow undisputed beltholders Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk, is set for his most active calendar year in more than a decade.

WBC light heavyweight titleholder David Benavidez will make his Riyadh Season debut in November and another pound-for-pound star will grace Saudi shores the following month.

The last time he was this busy came in 2013, where a string of impressive wins earned him a shot at the WBC junior flyweight crown. Now a four-weight world champion 12 years later, Inoue (31-0, 27 KOs) will face the third unbeaten foe of his career.

The Ring V: Night of the Samurai will take place at Riyadh's 22,000-seater Mohammed Abdo Arena and be streamed live worldwide on DAZN.

Mexico's Alan David Picasso (32-0-1, 17 KOs) is the assignment for 'The Monster', after the 25-year-old kicked off his 2025 campaign with a 10-round majority decision win over Inoue's compatriot Kyonosuke Kameda on July 19.

Ring and unified WBC/IBF bantamweight titleholder Nakatani (31-0, 24 KOs) has been clear about facing Inoue in an all-Japanese showdown of unbeaten champions and is expected to vacate his 118-pound belts in confirming he'll move up in weight again.

After dismantling Ryosuke Nishida last time out in June, he'll face a third consecutive unbeaten opponent in Sebastian Hernandez (20-0, 18 KOs).

The 24-year-old made a name for himself in Mexico before venturing stateside, where he's now based in San Diego, California, and pitched contrasting wins over Yonfrez Parejo and Azat Hovhannisyan on Bob Arum-promoted shows over the last year.

Elsewhere on a busy undercard packed with championship action, former two-weight world champion Kenshiro Teraji will look to bounce back from a split decision upset defeat by Ricardo Rafael Sandoval to lose his WBC/WBA belts on July 30.

The 33-year-old will move up in weight to challenge IBF ruler Willibaldo Garcia (23-6-2, 13 KOs) at 115-pounds after the 35-year-old's two-fight series with Rene Calixto Bibiano saw them closely matched after 24 rounds together in six months.

Ring champion Jesse Rodriguez faces Fernando Martinez in a three-belt unification the month prior as part of a stacked Ring IV card, so it'll be interesting to see how Teraji looks physically up another division after barely a year campaigning at flyweight.

Big things are expected of Japanese lightweight Taiga Imanaga (9-0, 5 KOs) and he'll mirror Inoue's turnaround between fights after sharing the bill last weekend in Nagoya.

He won the JBC 135-pound crown with a one-sided points win over Yudai Murakami (6-3-1) and will face Cuba's Florida-based contender Armando Martinez (16-0, 15 KOs), no doubt seeking to seize his No. 4 world ranking with the WBA at a time where the divisional landscape remains uncertain as champions assess lucrative options elsewhere.

The Tsutsumi brothers, both Ring Magazine ambassadors, will seek to finish 2025 strong.

Reito (3-0, 2 KOs) scored a first-round finish of Javier Martinez on the Canelo-Crawford undercard last weekend and now faces a considerable step-up in Leobardo Quintana (11-1, 5 KOs). His Mexican agemate has boxed 55 more rounds and been a pro since 2022, while another who turned pro three years ago has earned a maiden world title shot too.

Hayato (8-0, 5 KOs) didn't put a foot wrong en route to an inevitably destructive third-round finish against seasoned pro Qais Ashfaq on the Moses Itauma-Dillian Whyte undercard in August and next, he'll face an in-form Jazza Dickens (36-5, 15 KOs) after the Liverpudlian stunned Albert Batyrgaziev to win the WBA's 130-pound interim title in July.