The WBA Championships Committee have approved WBA super bantamweight champion Marlon Tapales to unify his belt against the July 25 winner of Naoya Inoue and Stephen Fulton. They also ordered former champ Murodjon Akhmadaliev and Tomoki Kameda to meet in a final eliminator to determine the division’s mandatory challenger.
Tapales dethroned Akhmadaliev last April 8 to win the crown in a controversial and close fight. Matchroom Boxing made a direct rematch request to the WBA and although there are elements that could support it, it is not feasible to do so at this time.
The new champion and his team asked the WBA for permission to fight the winner of Inoue and Fulton. This bout would be a unification of the WBA, IBF, WBC and WBO titles, which is a powerful reason to allow it for the sake of boxing.
Akhmadaliev will now fight Kameda, who won a semi-final eliminator against Yonfrez Parejo and the winner of this fight will be the next opponent of whoever wins between Tapales and Inoue/Fulton on a date to be determined later.
Seems like we went so long without having many at all and now we’re getting potential unified/undisputed champions every few months. This is awesome!
The fight hasn’t been made yet. This all just sounds good. Boxing hardly ever goes according to plans.
Oh NJ, I think that goes without saying. You say the fight hasn’t been made, but there isn’t even a fight to make. This fight is contingent upon the results of another one which is a few weeks out and has already been postponed once… stuff happens, sure.
However, that division has had 2 unified champions for awhile now and when Akhmadaliev was one of them they never came out and said this. The WBA said Ronny Rios and when he got hurt, they came back and said Ronny Rios again and then the IBF said Tapales. Now they say they’re all for unification, so I think that’s at least a pretty good sign.
Boxing keep getting better and better in 2023.
Now, if they could just get rid of YouTubers and celebrity fights plus limit the PPV to those match ups that deserve it.
Fulton is a good kid, but he can’t handle Inoue.