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Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
Naoya Inoue, one of the world’s best pound-for-pound boxers, returns Tuesday morning to defend the undisputed junior featherweight championship against TJ Doheny (ESPN+, 5:45 a.m. ET). And he will have plenty of opportunities for more big fights with a win against Doheny. The four-division champion is coming off an impressive victory over Luis Nery in front of more than 44,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome in May, and a future fight with bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani could surpass that number.
One week later, the sport’s top star, Canelo Alvarez, puts his unified super middleweight championship on the line vs. Edgar Berlanga, a fight that Terence Crawford will be watching with interest. The following week, another attraction steps through the ropes when Anthony Joshua attempts to become a three-time heavyweight titleholder against Daniel Dubois, with the winner looking at a variety of big fights in the near future.
With a star-studded September on the horizon, let’s dive into your boxing questions in this ESPN mailbag:
X user OttTalksBoxing asks: Bigger commercial event? Inoue vs. Junto in the Tokyo Dome, or Inoue vs. Tank at T-Mobile?
There’s a good reason Inoue rarely fights in the U.S., and it’s the piles of money he generates as a mega star in Japan. And a matchup with Nakatani would represent his biggest fight yet in Japan. Not only is Nakatani also Japanese, but he would present Inoue’s most formidable challenge to date.
Nakatani has shown blistering power at 115 and 118 pounds, and he’s now just one weight class below Inoue. The fight could certainly materialize next year and would easily sell out the Tokyo Dome.
But Inoue is also now at the point he could probably sell out arenas around the world, including Madison Square Garden in New York. And if he fought Gervonta “Tank” Davis, that would be a marquee event in Las Vegas that would generate serious business, especially on U.S. PPV, pushing it past the money that could be generated in Japan with Nakatani.
The issue with a fight with “Tank,” of course, is the weight. Davis fights three weight classes above Inoue, so it’s likely nothing more than a fantasy fight. A matchup with Nakatani, though, appears on the horizon.
X user adam_fnc asks: Whats next for Ryan Garcia?
Garcia isn’t eligible to return to the ring until April 20 — one year after his upset victory over Devin Haney, which was later overturned to a no contest due to a Garcia’s positive test for the banned substance ostarine.
In the months since his fight with Haney, Garcia was arrested and charged with vandalism following an alleged incident at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills hotel; was expelled by the WBC after using racial slurs on social media; and has claimed numerous times he would enter rehab.
What’s clear: Garcia remains one of the top stars in boxing, and a rematch with Haney is among the biggest possible fights. What’s far less certain: Garcia’s readiness to fight.
Garcia will need to prove he’s fit to fight and might even want a tune-up bout following a year away from the ring. Or he could head straight into a return bout with Haney, though the contract weight will also have to be ironed out. Garcia weighed 143.2 pounds for a 140-pound title bout with Haney.
The rematch makes far more sense at 147 pounds. But first, Garcia has a lot of hurdles to clear until he’s reinstated in April.
X user WBCHiTech asks: Do you think Crawford will rematch Madrimov after their highly controversial decision? Everyone agrees Madrimov got robbed and deserves the rematch
Not sure the decision was highly controversial, though you have a good argument if you scored the fight for Ismail Madrimov. The fight wasn’t all that entertaining, and there isn’t much demand for a rematch. There’s virtually no chance we see Crawford and Madrimov share the ring again.
Crawford turns 37 next month and doesn’t plan to fight too much longer. The only fight he’s targeting right now is a bout with Canelo at 168 pounds. Yes, that’s two more weight classes for Crawford to jump after he just made his 154-pound debut. But at this stage, he wants a daunting challenge and the chance to define his legacy. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Crawford would stand to earn a career-high payday by multiples in a fight against Alvarez.
If Crawford can’t lure Canelo into the ring next, he could always turn to a matchup with unified junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora, but “Bud” will first exhaust every possible avenue to land his dream fight.
As for Madrimov, he certainly earned another big fight with his performance. Perhaps he’ll land a shot at Vergil Ortiz Jr., who also fights on DAZN. That’s a compelling matchup and a chance for Madrimov to score a big win.
X user oldstylin asks: What’s next for Zhilei Zhang? A Parker rematch? A fight against Bakole or Kabayel?
Zhang, coming off a spectacular fifth-round TKO win over Deontay Wilder in June, is in line for a marquee matchup. That was Zhang’s second consecutive fight on a Riyadh Season card, which has featured a substantial commitment to the heavyweight division through six events.
Zhang floored Joseph Parker twice in March before losing a decision, but the fight wasn’t all that entertaining. It’s unlikely we see that fight next, at least on a Riyadh Season card. Agit Kabayel, meanwhile, is in line for a meaningful fight after his TKO victory over Frank Sanchez in May. A matchup between Kabayel and Parker makes a lot of sense considering who’s available at heavyweight.
Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia, told ESPN earlier this month he’s looking to match up Zhang with another top heavyweight, Martin Bakole. Both stand 6-foot-6, weigh around 285 pounds and are imposing punchers.
Bakole is coming off his own highlight-reel fifth-round TKO win, a victory over Jared Anderson on the Crawford-Madrimov undercard. Bakole is from the Democratic Republic of Congo (though he now resides in Scotland), while Zhang is from China and fights out of North Jersey.
Alalshikh said he’d like to stage Zhang-Bakole in either Africa or China, two places that have largely been forgotten about when it comes to holding big-time boxing events. Assuming the fight materializes, the winner would be positioned for a shot at Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk or Joshua at some point in 2025.
X user TheKidIrv24 asks: How’s the card for Riyadh season in February coming along? Who’s looking like will headline it?
Alalshikh is planning a card in February, and if all goes according to plan, it could end up being the big one: Canelo vs. Crawford. Expect talks to be revisited once more after the Alvarez-Berlanga bout.
A fight in the works for that February card is the anticipated lightweight title unification between Shakur Stevenson and William Zepeda. First, Stevenson will fight Joe Cordina on Oct. 12 on the Artur Beterbiev– Dmitry Bivol undercard. There were attempts to stage Stevenson-Zepeda on that card, but Zepeda wasn’t available due to the birth of his child.
Otherwise, Alalshikh has been open about his desire to deliver more top-level heavyweight bouts. He already has two big bouts lined up before the end of this year: Joshua-Dubois and the Usyk-Fury rematch on Dec. 21, but he’s also looking past February.
In an ideal world, Fury defeats Usyk and Joshua defeats Dubois, setting up the long-awaited Fury-Joshua bout once and for all. It’s an all-Great Britain matchup that was on the cusp of being finalized in 2020. After it didn’t happen and then appeared to be past its expiration date, the fight would be bigger than ever if both fighters score big wins, but that wouldn’t be in February.
If Usyk defeats Fury a second time, it could be tough to sell a trilogy bout between Joshua and Usyk because the Ukrainian already has defeated him twice. There would still be interest, but Joshua will have to deliver an explosive performance against Dubois. And interest in Usyk-Joshua 3 would still pale in comparison to the Fury-Joshua fight.
X user HamedBoxing asks: What’s the plan for Teofimo Lopez since he’s not fighting Brian Norman Jr. now?
Top Rank did look to match up Lopez, the junior welterweight champion, with Norman on Sept. 27, but Lopez decided to take off the rest of 2024 after previously planning to fight three times this year.
It’s a disappointing campaign for Lopez, who struggled to defeat Jamaine Ortiz in February and then failed to make a statement against heavy underdog Steve Claggett in June. This comes after Lopez revived his career with an impressive victory over Josh Taylor in June 2023.
The good news for Lopez: He just turned 27 in July. There’s still ample time for him to realize his vast potential and plenty of compelling matchups to make at 140 pounds. A fight with Haney would be heavily anticipated, as would bouts with “Tank” Davis and Garcia.
But chalk up 2024 as a lost campaign for Lopez, whose career has seen many ebbs and flows, from his thrilling victory over Vasiliy Lomachenko to his disappointing upset loss to George Kambosos Jr. the following year.