Hall of Fame boxer Floyd Mayweather is challenging four-weight world boxing champion Naoya Inoue to fight his former protege Gervonta Davis in a pound-for-pound spectacle.
Inoue, 30, scored one of the year’s most significant victories last month when he finished Stephen Fulton in the eighth round of a one-sided drubbing at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, to claim the WBC and WBO super bantamweight titles.
The win put a punctuation mark on a stellar career that has already seen him beat Nonito Donaire twice, Emmanuel Rodriguez, and Jason Moloney.
It also could put him on a collision course with fellow puncher ‘Tank’ Davis, even though the 28-year-old American competes in higher weight classes.
"What I need Inoue to do is do like we do in the U.S.,” Mayweather began during an interview this week with Fight Hype.
“I need him to come fight in the USA, random blood and urine testing. I think [Inoue] is a helluva fighter, helluva fighter. I won't take nothing away from him.
“And I like him … but what I would like to see is if he could fight Gervonta at a catchweight. That'd be a hell of a fight.”
It is unclear what a fair catchweight would be as Inoue currently campaigns at 122-pounds and Davis has fought as high as 140.
It is also unlikely that such a match-up will happen any time soon, with Davis linked more immediately with fights against Chris Colbert, an Isaac Cruz rematch, and Devin Haney.
Should a super-fight between Inoue and Davis emerge in the future, it could – in a twist of fate – see Manny Pacquiao on an opposite side to his career nemesis Mayweather.
Pacquiao, this week, said he’d like to work with the Japanese boxer should Inoue require help transitioning into even higher weight classes.
“I want to train him and supervise his training if he wants to move up to higher divisions,” Pacquiao told Little Giant Boxing.
