By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he wants newly installed#2 pound-for-pound fighter Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue to face Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in a catchweight bout.
For Inoue to fight a guy as big as Tank, would be like Gervonta moving up to welterweight to take on Terence Crawford. The tiny 5’5″ Tank would be food for Crawford. Floyd says he wants the Japanese star, who recently moved up to 122, to come to the U.S., be randomly drug tested, and then face Tank Davis at a catchweight. There was no mention of what weight the fight would take place if Inoue agreed to it, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it were 130, meaning Naoya would have to move up eight pounds from 122, which is a lot of weight for such a small fighter to go up.
As big as Tank Davis is, he would likely rehydrate to have an enormous weight advantage over Inoue if they agreed to fight at a catchweight. Taank fights in the lightweight division and has competed at 140.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Tank had a 20+ lb weight advantage over Inoue after he rehydrated for a fight between them, and it would be a massively unfair fight. It’s unclear why Mayweather mentioned the random drug testing because Inoue gets tested for drugs like any fighter that competes. Does Floyd suspect Inoue is using PEDs to help him win fights? Mayweather sounded bitter today, going into a rant about how the Japanese star Inoue (25-0, 22 KOs) has the #1 spot in the pound-for-pound list after his eighth round knockout win over previously unbeaten WBC & WBO 122-lb champion Stephen ‘Cool Boy Stef’ Fulton (21-1, 8 KOs) last month on July 25th in Tokyo, Japan.
Floyd was bent out of shape, talking about how Tank Davis isn’t on the pound-for-pound list like Inoue. “So when we look, honestly speaking, the kid from Japan, Inoue. So even though he got the ‘Cool Boy Stef’ [Stephen Fulton], he got the victory over ‘Cool Boy Stef.’ ‘Cool Boy Stef is not a heavy puncher,” said Floyd Mayweather Jr to Fighthype, discrediting Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue’s recent eighth round knockout victory over former unified WBC & WBO super bantamweight champion Stephen Fulton on July 25th.
“He’s [Fultton] a good boxer. So everything is about timing, but he went out there, and he did what he was supposed to do. I want ‘Cool Boy Stef’ to hold his head high. I’m proud of him. Any true champion can take a loss and bounce back. “But as far as Inoue, it was a Filipino fighter he had fought twice, Donaire. So Donaire was giving him fits in the first fight, and if I’m not mistaken, Donaire was somewhere close to years old when he fought him the first time.
“Whereas and he [Inoue] was in his 20s, so he should have knocked him out in the first fight, fighting a guy at that age. A lot of times, we look and find different ways to try to bash fighters and talk bad about fighters. I’m not going to do that. “What I need Inoue to do is to come to fight in the USA, random blood and urine testing,” said Mayweather. “I would like to see him fight Gervonta Davis at a catchweight.”
