Comments Thread For: "Fighting Words" -- For Canelo and Inoue, Undisputed Doesn't Mean Their Work is Done

[Mr. David]

The Benavidez-sized elephant in the room needs to be put out to pasture for that opening statement to ring true.

Canelo is the king of the 168-pound division and the undisputed champ no matter whether he faces Benavidez. But as I said in the article, there are responsibilities that come with being king, and I note the differences in the article between how Canelo is handling his responsibilities vs. how Inoue is.

[Mr. David]

That was a pretty decent article.

Inoue is the fighter everyone wishes Canelo were, or still were. I'm surprised they didn't mention MJ Akhmadaliev though at 122, or Sam Goodman. Casimero is a clown IMO, who needs to beat one of the aforementioned to earn a shot. Nery, Goodman, and MJ are the mandatories currently. If Casimero is really all that, he can beat one of the latter two to earn his shot at the titles.

I also appreciated the author providing that reminder about the context for Bud moving up to 147. People act like Indongo wasn't anybody, but there weren't that many great fights left, considering Crawford wasn't going to get a fight with Garcia. It's a shame he re-upped with Top Rank, especially considering how it ended. Maybe he'd have gotten the fights at 147 faster if he'd moved to PBC. Maybe not though. It's still bizarre to me that people think he's boring to watch.

Thank you for the pretty decent compliment.

I do mention Akhmadaliev in the article, and Goodman was among those I had in mind when I said: "There are other names in the division who haven’t fought at the top levels of the weight class but may be closer to being ready before the year is out."

Here's the paragraph:

If he gets by Nery on Monday, the top remaining junior featherweights would include Casimero and Murodjon Akhmadaliev, a former unified titleholder who lost his belts to Tapales via split decision and shouldn’t be written off yet. There are other names in the division who haven’t fought at the top levels of the weight class but may be closer to being ready before the year is out. And then there’s Junto Nakatani, another Japanese sensation who recently arrived at 118 but perhaps could be tempted to jump up to face Inoue before he departs for featherweight.