Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh is reportedly hoping to stage Naoya Inoue’s next fight at Wembley Stadium in September.
According to Yahoo Japan, Inoue has received an offer to fight on the Saudi backed Riyadh Season card headlined by Anthony Joshua on September 20/21.
Inoue is set to defend his undisputed WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO super-bantamweight world titles against IBF mandatory challenger Sam Goodman in his next outing.
‘The Monster’ welcomed Goodman into the ring after his sixth-round knockout win over Luis Nery on Monday and confirmed that the fight will take place in September.
Inoue is estimated to have earned $3.8million for his last bout while the Saudi’s are said to be willing to pay him up to $10m.
The report goes on to add that Saudi Arabian government officials intend to visit Japan before the end of May to finalise the deal with alternative dates and venues also being considered.
A fight in Saudi Arabia or the Es Con Field Hokkaido, home of Japanese baseball side Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, have been floated around as other potential options.
Inoue hasn’t fought outside of Japan in three years.
The last time he did, he knocked out Michael Dasmarinas at the Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas to retain his WBA and IBF bantamweight titles.
He has never boxed in England before but did face Emmanuel Rodriguez at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro in the World Boxing Super Series: bantamweight semi-final back in May 2019.
That could all be about to change providing he signs on the dotted line to box on the same bill as AJ this summer.
Joshua’s opponent for the spectacular London event is yet to be confirmed.
However, he recently informed talkSPORT that whoever puts in the best performance out of Deontay Wilder vs Zhilei Zhang and Filip Hrgovic vs Daniel Dubois on the Matchroom vs Queensberry 5 vs 5 card on June 1 will be the frontrunner to box him next.
Discussing his next fight with talkSPORT last month, Joshua said: “You’ve got Filip Hrgovic vs Daniel Dubois, and you’ve got Zhilei Zhang vs Deontay Wilder.
“So providing one of those looks good – the one who looks the best, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh said to me, ‘I want you to fight [him].’
“What he says is, ‘In the future I want people to look back at your record and say that you took on the best.’
“I said, ‘Now you’re speaking my language.’ So out of that pool, I believe that’s who I’m gonna be fighting, one of those.
“We’re on the same page and he’s on the same page as the fans as well.
“He’s trying to deliver what the fans want, I know they want that big fight with Tyson Fury and he’s working on it.
“But Fury’s got his obligations with Oleksandr Usyk so I’ve gotta make sure I stay focused and disciplined, keep steamrolling through opponents so I can get closer and closer to having the opportunity of me vs Tyson Fury.”
