Murodjon Akhmadaliev to Naoya Inoue: Fight me or step aside

Former junior featherweight champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev has called on unified champ Naoya Inoue to either fight him or surrender one of his belts.

Akhmadaliev (12-1, 9 KOs) won the IBF and WBA belts with victory over Daniel Roman in January 2020 but lost them via controversial split decision to Marlon Tapales in April 2023. Tapales thus earned a unification bout with Inoue, which he lost by 10th-round stoppage, leaving Akhmadaliev in the cold. And that is where he has remained, despite the WBA listing him as its mandatory challenger ever since.

“It’s a weird situation,” Akhmadaliev told BoxingScene over Zoom from Uzbekistan. “I’m the mandatory. You have the belt, you have to fulfill your obligations. I don’t know if he’s scared or his team is scared, or what’s going on, because I told them right away, ‘I’m ready to fight. Just name the date and place and I’ll be there.’ It doesn’t matter to me where it’s going to happen. I fought all my life in enemy territory, and it was never an issue for me. So I’m ready and willing to step in.

“But if for some reason he doesn’t want to – and we can see, in his case, that he doesn’t want to fight, because despite calling my name and saying that he wants to fight me, they never reach out, so it’s all a bluff – then just vacate the title. Rules are the same for everyone. Canelo [Alvarez] got stripped of the title [by the IBF, for facing Edgar Berlanga instead of that organization’s mandatory, William Scull]. Why is Inoue not getting stripped? I believe that belt belongs to me and I was screwed on the scorecards, and I still feel like a champion. And I can prove it against Inoue, because I know that I can beat him.”

Akhmadaliev is complimentary of Inoue, who is universally regarded, along with Oleksander Usyk and Terence Crawford, as part of the triumvirate atop boxing’s pound-for-pound rankings. But, he says, he just wants the opportunity to prove himself against the man known as “The Monster,” who has scored stoppage wins against Luis Nery and T.J. Doheny since Akhmadaliev was named the WBA mandatory.

“I know that I’m the best fighter at 122 pounds,” he said. “Everyone in the world knows that if there is someone who can beat him, it’s me. I still feel like a champion in this division, you know, and they’re finding a lot of excuses [not to fight me]. I really respect him. I think he’s a great fighter, but he doesn’t act the way he talks. He’s been called the best fighter in the world. And I feel it’s embarrassing when the best fighter doesn’t want to fight his mandatories. They’re avoiding the fight, and I’m OK with that. Just vacate the title and move on. Just tell the whole world that you don’t want to fight me. Don’t be saying my name and that you want to fight me but never fight me.”

Of course, there’s a good chance that Akhmadaliev could have already had the opportunity he craves had he taken care of business against Tapales. During the build-up to the contest with the Filipino, the prospect of a battle with Inoue for the undisputed crown was dangled before the winner, a prospect that came to fruition for Tapales. But although Akhmadaliev admits that, “of course, looking back, I would do some things differently” in that fight, he still insists that he deserved to have his hand raised – noting that while two judges scored the contest 115-113 for the challenger, the third saw Akhmadaliev winning by a country mile.

“One judge gave me 10 rounds in that fight, and I was the defending champion,” he said. “I pushed the pace. I was the one hunting that guy. I landed the bigger shots. I was the aggressor in that fight. I could have put pressure on a little bit earlier and got rid of him. But again, I still won that fight, and that’s why, right after the fight, the WBA ordered the rematch. And Tapales’ team avoided that rematch. They said that they already had the fight set up with Inoue, and my team was OK with it because the winner was supposed to face me. But it never came through. So now, looking back, would I do things differently? Yes. But there are judges for a reason. They have to do their job, and that night, they screwed up.”

Akhmadaliev has fought just once since the Tapales bout, stopping Kevin Gonzalez in eight rounds in December. Since then, he has been training for a fight that has yet to manifest, but he insists that, one way or another, he’ll be back in the ring before 2024 is over.

“I was preparing to fight mid-summer,” he explained, “and then there were talks, and the WBA, for the second time, named me as official contender, and gave us a negotiations period [to agree terms with Inoue]. But then, obviously, he faced Doheny. So I started a training camp again, and I was supposed to fight in September, and then the date got postponed again.  So I’ve been in camp for like four months, and I had to pull out because I was a little bit overtrained, and I knew the dates would get postponed, postponed. So I decided to take a rest and I went back home. I’m resting a little bit right now, I’m training with the Olympic team, and I’m not waiting for him. I’m waiting for the sanctioning bodies to make their decision. I’m going to fight in December and I believe that I’m going to fight for the title. I hope that he’s going to do the right thing. But if not, he’s going to get stripped, and I’m going to fight for the title anyway.”

Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.