Former unified super bantamweight champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev, better known by his nickname 'MJ' appears to be set to be in a world title eliminator. Akhmadaliev, who lost his title earlier this year to Marlon Tapales, and missed out on a huge fight with Naoya Inoue will now look to return in December.
Matchroom Boxing successfully won the bid for his WBA final eliminator that would pit Akhmadaliev against Kevin Gonzalez. The winning bid was a $120,000 offer that will be split between the two fighters. Jake Donovan of BoxingScene.com was the first to report the news.
Now for where the fight might land. A logical next step might be on the pay-per-view undercard of Regis Prograis vs Devin Haney on December 9th in San Francisco, California, but others have suggested the Sunny Edwards vs Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez on December 16th, as well as the December 23rd event in Abu Dhabi, all being in the running.
Just to make matters more confusing Gonzalez may opt out if he deems the $60,000 share of the purse inadequate. Gonzalez earned this chance after Tomoki Kameda moved up to the featherweight division. If that were the case, Ukraine’s Oleh Dovhun would be the next opponent per the WBA rankings.
The victor of this bout will position themselves for a title challenge against the winner of the Naoya Inoue vs Marlon Tapales bout. Albeit most expect that the result of that fight to be Inoue winning and vacating the division. Meaning that the winner of this bout could find themselves in a vacant world title fight or promoted to full champion given the circumstances that follow in the next few months.
