Japanese undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue already has a fight lined up for December with Australian contender Sam Goodman, thereby making the prior report of the IBF ordering purse bids for the two fighters on October 29 obsolete. With this fight now heavily tipped to take place on December 24, questions now remain as to what awaits for the future of Murodjon Akhmadaliev who still remains the WBA 122 lbs #1 contender and mandatory challenger.
Naoya Inoue (28-0, 25 KO’s) last fought roughly a month ago against Irish contender TJ Doheny (26-5, 20 KO’s), stopping the Irishman in the 7th round of their 12-round title bout to retain all his super bantamweight (122 lbs) titles. With the fight having been a voluntary defense that was allowed by the WBA with the expectation of Inoue facing Uzbek fighter Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1, 9 KO’s) next, Sam Goodman (19-0, 8 KO’s) has suddenly sprung up to become Inoue’s next opponent.
According to “boxing insider” Rick Glaser, Inoue and Goodman have already had a deal lined up after the two were ordered by the IBF to face each other in a mandatory bout.
“Have been told the IBF announcement to hold a purse bid for Inoue-Goodman is a mistake by an IBF official, as a deal had been made awhile ago between promoters Teiken and No Limit,” Glaser posted earlier today on Twitter/X. “There’s a media conference on tap for next week in Tokyo for the December 24 fight. Boxing in Japan is bigger than ever.“
Glaser’s claims of a fight between Japanese promotion Teiken Promotions [representing Inoue] and Australian promotion No Limit [representing Goodman] also suggested the two had reached a deal “a while ago” and that an IBF official had “made a mistake”, indicating that the IBF’s inconsistent decision-making over the past year might be due to a structural problem within the organization centered around miscommunication and a lack of transparency.
More problematic is the fact that Murodjon Akhmadaliev has no choice but to await the opportunity to face Naoya Inoue despite his choice to take a step-aside deal1 and allow Inoue to temporarily forgoe his obligations to face him in order to fight TJ Doheny last month.
Akhmadaliev’s issue pertains to the ineffectiveness of the WBA who neglected to signal a mandate for Inoue and Akhmadaliev to face each other following Inoue’s September 3rd fight against Doheny. With an order having remained absent, the IBF sent their own mandate in September for a Inoue-Goodman fight and with the two having reportedly already reached an agreement for December 24, Akhmadaliev has clearly gotten the short end of the stick.
The only possible option for Akhmadaliev now is to await the result of the December 24 bout, and petition the WBA to re-order a match with the winner―given the WBA does not appear to have the perspicuity to actually enforce their own rules without needing to be pushed to do so.
- An agreement where a fighter [often a mandatory challenger] accepts compensation to temporarily forgo their sanctioning body-mandated bout, allowing another match to occur―often between the champion they were supposed to fight and another ranked contender. The sidelined boxer typically retains a future title shot or opportunity. ↩︎
