Inoue was really a good fighter not only he is playing physically but he is trying to distract his opponent mentally by provoking him. That was really a good knock out though and kudos to the Butler for giving a good match and being a tough one to face Inoue. Who could probably a good match right now for Inoue?
I agree with you that Naoya Inoue is a good fighter because he is indeed a genarational one for me but provoking his opponent? Surely that's not one of the traits of Inoue. I don't know where did you read or get that but he is not like that, provoking is not on his vocabulary because he is one of a humble man who just want to do the talk rather than waste some time in talking some nonsense.
I bet we already have our own speculations on who will be a good match for Inoue, but I think it's good to let the time reveal that for us.
Yes, it's not the trait of Japanese to provoke their opponent, on the contrary they show much respect to their defeated opponent. Maybe Inoue is testing new skills in this fight like his resiliency to chase Butler and not to go for the knock out because Butler keeps on circling. So what he do? he attack the next best thing that is exposed and that is the body of Butler. So another dimension of the skills of Inoue has been unlocked in this fight, mental fortitude to stay focus on the goal and then look for other ways to break down his opponent.
You could really be able to see that Inoue now is much more disciplined and try to be cool on every decision he would made and this is what makes him a good technical fighter.He could really easily
be able to see on where are those openings and trying out to throw up some punch which would cause for the opponent to lower their guard or missing out on defending some parts of his upper body
which it is really that on his chest or stomach part or something in that space.Butler do really focuses out on covering or defending his face or head but Inoue isnt really
that dumb to throw combinations without having those alterations including body shot which is really good to look at on every success hit.