Remind me why Inoue is pfp higher than Tank Davis.

21 pages lol. Tank is fun to watch but Inoue is easily top 3 behind Usyk and Crawford for me.

People at one point were clamoring for Tank vs Inoue. That's how great Inoue is.

 

MJ is a very close guarantee to occur in Spring of 2025, and you want Inoue to rematch Fulton at feather after the easy win he had at 122? I guess its a possibility if Fulton manages to defeat Figueroa...

 

Raymond Ford as in the guy that was lucky (with some assistance from the referee) to be even able to get the belt against Kholmatov to begin with who immediately lost it in his first defense to none other than Nick Ball and now planning to fight at 130 next? That Raymond Ford?

Also, along with MJ in early 2025, as long as they don't lose the belt the winner of Robeisy/Espinoza (along with Leo/Ball/winner of Figueroa-Fulton rematch) will all definitely get Inoue in the first four fights at 126 so you'll see them all eventually.

 

I thought Ford beat Ball aswell I preferred his cleaner accurate punches. Most seemed to disagree with me in the RBR thread though.

 

People thinking Ford beat Ball is also understandable and I'm not going to argue against it, but similarly I see it as Ford having solidly lost to Kholmatov on the cards and the only reason he even got the belt and fought Ball to begin with was because the referee jumped in to award a very biased stoppage with 7 seconds left in the match.
In a way, it is similar to how Rolly having "won" against Barroso for the 140 and then most understandingly getting owned by Cruz (but frankly any contender would've won against Rolly so it was a bonus belt) who then got easily owned by Valenzuela.

Regarding 2025, I agree you can never be 100% positive a fight occurs until the day comes and the guys enter the ring, but I'm certainly more optimistic for the chance of Inoue-MJ materializing more than Tank fighting Shakur in his first unification fight ever in his 12 years professional boxing career, for example.

 

His back was turned because he was "totally gone", or did it get turned due to the movement from a punch and he was still more than fine? The answer we won't ever know, but with neither of them having a belt anymore I guess it really is a spilled milk that no longer matters much. The way I see it as is this: in a fight that was in America between an American (Ford) and a non-American (Kholmatov), would the ref actually stopped the fight and given a TKO win to Kholmatov at that timing if the two guys were reversed, where Ford was solidly leading on the cards (enough that even scoring a droppage on that final round wasn't enough to win the decision) and had 7 seconds left until he was a champion, and Kholmatov was giving his final desperate rush? If the answer isn't a definite, confident YES, I consider it a referee's "assistance" and not forced. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that Ford or his team straight up paid off the referee or something extreme like that, just saying that the reason he won had a lot of luck unrelated to boxing.

By the way I don't know how long Kholmatov's contract with Top Rank is, but if he stays given his age (26) and skills as long as he manages to hang around near the top of the rankings (he is 4th in WBA right now) and can get himself up into a mandatory position, he might actually be one of the realistic choices to be the voluntary/mandatory defense opponent once all the belt fights are completed. In all honestly as a boxer I think he's overall better boxer than Bruce Carrington at least from what they've shown.

 

Tank got outboxed and took a knee against Lamont Roach and was gifted a draw.

A good reminder of why Inoue ranks higher than Davis.

 

Lmao.

 

This is the type of take I would expect on Reddit, not a serious boxing forum. But this guy and this forum always manage to surprise me.