Bob Arum has responded to a Floyd Mayweather pitch on Gervonta Davis facing Naoya Inoue at a catchweight between super bantamweight and lightweight.
Mayweather aired his views on the fight he wanted to see most in the sport. Arum wasn’t impressed when Mayweather said Davis vs Inoue [possibly at around super featherweight].
“I think he’s a hell of a fighter,” Mayweather told Fighthype on Inoue. “I take nothing away from him. He’s a hell of a fighter.
“I like him. He takes a lot of stuff from my playbook. But that’s OK. In boxing, you’re supposed to take something from the gears.”
“What I would like to see is if [Inoue] would fight Gervonta [Davis] at a catchweight.”
Bob Arum blasts Floyd Mayweather’s idea
Top Rank Hall of Famer Arum choked on the idea. He stated the notion of it makes zero sense.
“Inoue started at 108 pounds. Now he’s worked his way up to 122. He is a tremendous star in Japan,” Arum told FightHub TV. “Virtually nobody in Japan knows who Tank Davis is.
“Why would Inoue, who is undersized at 122, talk about fighting a guy [Gervonta] who’s essentially a junior welterweight at 140 pounds? It makes absolutely no sense.”
Moving on to Inoue facing Shakur Stevenson or Vasiliy Lomachenko, fighters who also fought at lower weights, he added: “I mean, would Inoue have any chance with Shakur? Probably not.
“Shakur’s way too big for him. Let’s not be carried away. Terence Crawford showed what a great fighter he was the other week. But you wouldn’t want to put him in with Tyson Fury.
“Yeah, I know he [Gervonta Davis] sells in the US, but again, it doesn’t if it’s not good for Inoue. He can’t rush up and fight guys so much bigger than he is.
“Inoue looked like a shrimp compared to Fulton. I was there. I said, ‘Oh, my God, this is going to be tough.’ He handled Fulton easily. Let’s see what he does with the Filipino [Marlon Tapales].
Inoue vs Tapales
“Then there are guys at 126 that will test him, like [Robeisy] Ramirez. Let’s see how he does there. “To put him in with a 140-pounder [like Davis], you got to be stupid.
“The Japanese are not stupid. Japanese in the business, Ohashi, and Honda, are good boxing people. They understand boxing.”
On Lomachenko, Arum concluded: “It’s dumb to think about it. Maybe a year from now, two years from now, it won’t be, but right now, it is.
“He has no problems making the weight. Most of his opponents, including the Filipino kid [Tapales] that he’s going to fight are much bigger than he is. So again, one step at a time.”
