Murodjon Akhmadaliev destroys Ricardo Espinoza, is Naoya Inoue next?

Murodjon Akhmadaliev stopped Ricardo Espinoza and made his case to face Naoya Inoue next year.

Murodjon Akhmadaliev made quick work of Ricardo Espinoza today in Monte Carlo, retaining his interim super bantamweight title and making the clear case for himself to face undisputed champion Naoya Inoue in 2025.

Akhmadaliev put Espinoza down three times in the third round to get the TKO win.

Along with the fact that he’s a talented and very credible contender, Akhmadaliev (13-1, 10 KO) is the best challenger available at 122 lbs partly by process of elimination, as Inoue has simply beaten all of the other top contenders, including Marlon Tapales after Tapales upset Akhmadaliev in 2023.

It’s a second straight win for the Uzbek southpaw since that loss, as he dominated Kevin Gonzalez about a year ago.

Inoue is set to face Sam Goodman on Jan. 24, which is the new date after that fight was postponed from its original Christmas Eve date in Tokyo.

Espinoza (30-5, 25 KO) was over-matched but definitely came to fight, and threw what he had at “MJ” after both of the first two knockdowns, recklessly marching into the awaiting fists of his opponent. The Tijuana native definitely went out on his shield.

Undercard

France’s Leonardo Mosquea scored a pretty notable upset over Cheavon Clarke to win the vacant European cruiserweight title, dropping Clarke in the opening round and ultimately winning a split decision, with cards of 115-112 and 116-112 going to the Dominican-born Mosquea and one card of 117-113 going to Clarke (10-1, 7 KO).

Mosquea (16-0, 9 KO) showed a hand speed that seemed to surprise the British southpaw early, but Clarke did adjust, and it was a very good and competitive fight. Clarke did some good body work in this one, and did well to keep himself in the fight after a start that could have gone much worse, very quickly, but I do think the judges got this one right — well, two of them did. A rematch would not be unwelcome, but cruiserweight is a division where you can quickly move into the world title picture, and Mosquea may look that direction ASAP.

Beatriz Ferreira easily retained her IBF lightweight title with a clean sweep points win over France’s Licia Boudersa, 100-90 on all three cards. Simply put, Brazil’s Ferreira (6-0, 2 KO) is a legitimate high-level pro, and Boudersa, like, isn’t.

The fight was never competitive and Boudersa didn’t have the advantage for any 15-second stretch, let alone any round.

Maxi Hughes turned in a surprisingly dominant performance in a clear win over Gary Cully, officially sweeping all three cards for a unanimous decision win on scores of 100-90 across the board. Hughes (28-7-2, 6 KO) continuing his career-best run through an arguable robbery loss to George Kambosos Jr and then a brutal setback against William Zepeda is really low-key special.

Back-to-back fights like that runs a high risk of breaking the mentality of even a tough guy, because it can seem like you hit the wall, hard, in two different ways, and while Cully (18-2, 10 KO) is a flawed fighter and not world-class, the Irishman had plenty of advantages on paper, and Hughes just ate him up, not even counting a filthy cut on Cully’s eyelid that he gamely fought through for the bulk of the bout.

Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior improved to 5-0 (5 KO) in his first pro fight since 2022, following his silver medal run at the Paris Olympics this past summer.

This is a very serious heavyweight pro prospect, possibly even more so than two-time gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov, if only because Teremoana seems like he’s ready to truly focus on the pro ranks and Jalolov does not, and may never. Teremoana stopped Volodymyr Katsuk (5-2, 2 KO) in just over two minutes, scoring three knockdowns.