Inoue intends to fight TJ Doheny instead of the mandatory fight with Akhmadaliev

Absolute world champion in second bantamweight Naoya Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs) intends to ignore the demand World Boxing Association (WBA) and refuse to fight the mandatory challenger Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1, 9 KOs).

Instead, the Japanese plans to fight against another representative of the top 5 of the WBA rating, 37-year-old TJ Doheny, a former IBF world champion.

This confrontation is expected to take place on September 9th. Inoue’s next opponent (tentatively in December) could be IBF mandatory challenger in super bantamweight Sam Goodman.

As promoter Bob Arum commented on Naoya’s choice, Doheny became a very popular boxer in Japan, where he won three fights in a row. In addition, the loss of the WBA belt is not particularly critical for Inoue, since next year he plans to change the weight category, rising from the second bantamweight (up to 122 pounds) to featherweight (up to 126).

Let us recall that earlier the WBA ordered Inoue to defend his titles against the Uzbek Akhmadaliev, who held the WBA and IBF titles for more than three years, but lost them to the Filipino Marlon Tapales in August 2023. Naoya and Murojon were given 30 days to agree on the terms of the upcoming battle, which was to take place before September 25 of this year.

The 31-year-old Japanese boxer made the previous defense of his four titles in early May against Mexican Luis Nery, a contender for the WBC title. Naoya scored an early victory in the sixth round and remained undefeated in the professional ring.

Thanks to that success, the Japanese topped the world ranking regardless of weight category (P4P) according to The Ring magazine, but not for long – ten days later he was pushed off the pedestal by Ukrainian Alexander Usik, who became the absolute champion in heavyweight.

Before that, last December, Inoue beat the aforementioned Tapales to add the IBF and WBA belts to his WBC and WBO super bantamweight titles. Thus, Naoya made history by becoming the absolute world champion in two weight categories within a year.