{"id":641266,"date":"2026-05-01T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641266\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T18:00:10","slug":"floyd-mayweathers-tax-debt-anthony-joshuas-next-fight-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641266\/","title":{"rendered":"Floyd Mayweather\u2019s Tax Debt, Anthony Joshua\u2019s Next Fight and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, a friend of mine asked for help getting a couple of tickets for the 122-pound showdown between Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani, which is set to take place in the 55,000 seat Tokyo Dome. When I asked around, the response I got was along the lines of, No shot. Inoue-Nakatani is the hottest ticket in Japan, with every seat expected to be filled for the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And why not? Inoue is a mega star in Japan. He\u2019s the undisputed 122-pound champion who went 4\u20130 in title defenses last year. Nakatani is an undefeated former 118-pound titleholder who has blasted out 75% of the opponents that he has faced. They are both top-10, pound-for-pound stars in the middle of the prime years of their careers. It doesn\u2019t get much better than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So who wins? Betting sites have made Inoue a pretty sizable favorite. Inoue is the more natural 122-pounder, though he\u2019s looked a little more vulnerable in recent fights. Nakatani was a force at 118-pounds but he just avoided disaster last December, barely edging out Sebastian Hernandez in his first fight at 122. Both have skills. Both have power. A lot of potential outcomes in this fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd4a\u00a0 For years, Floyd Mayweather Jr. flashed his wealth everywhere he went, through private jets, expensive cars or just bricks of cash zipped into Gucci handbags. Those days appear to be over. According to The Ring,<\/a> the Internal Revenue Service notified Mayweather of its intent to revoke his passport. At issue is more than $7 million in unpaid taxes, according to the report, which follows a string of reports of mounting bills for Mayweather, who earned more than $1 billion over his two-decade long boxing career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crazy, right? Mayweather isn\u2019t the first athlete to go broke, and he is far from the first boxer to burn through an extraordinary amount of cash. Indeed, Manny Pacquiao, who Mayweather is kinda, sorta planning to face in an exhibition\/real fight in September, is worth a fraction of what he was at his peak, when he was regularly collecting eight-figure paydays. Mayweather-Pacquiao, already sad when it was announced, just got a lot sadder.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd4a Anthony Joshua has selected his opponent for his summer return: Kristian Prenga, an intimidating looking, 6′ 5 with a splashy record (20-1, 20 knockouts) and zero r\u00e9sum\u00e9. Seriously\u2014the best opponent Prenga has beaten is Joey Dawejko, who Prenga got at the tail end of a career as a chin-for-hire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Really, though: Who cares? Joshua is just months removed from a horrific car accident that killed two of his closest friends and left him banged up. He\u2019s entering his first fight with Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s training team\u2014Usyk, I\u2019m told, has been acting as a de facto manager for his former foe\u2014and has fought once since 2024. A shake off the rust fight is in order and Prenga, who has spent recent years beating up on cab drivers in Atlantic City, fits the bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides\u2014we\u2019re getting what we want. In signing to fight Prenga, Joshua also signed on to face Tyson Fury, in what will be the biggest fight in British boxing history. The two Brits have been circling each other for years <\/a>and now will square off (on Netflix) in a massive event. Fury, who defeated Arslanbek Makhmudov last month, has been making some noise about taking another fight before AJ. Here\u2019s hoping he lets Joshua get his fight in and the two meet before the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd4a Can\u2019t say I agree with Teofimo Lopez\u2019s decision to pass on the chance to fight for a 140-pound title. Last week, the IBF ordered Lopez to face Lindolfo Delgado for the belt recently vacated by Richardson Hitchins. After meeting with his representatives\u2014who I\u2019m told pushed for him to take the fight\u2014Lopez decided to stick to his word and move up to 147-pounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lopez is a talented fighter. His loss to Shakur Stevenson<\/a> in January was far more about Stevenson\u2019s brilliance than any indictment of Lopez. But he\u2019s not a big 140-pounder and will be downright small competing in a higher weight class. It would have made far more sense to fight Delgado\u2014the kind of aggressive opponent Lopez does well against\u2014and give himself options. Instead, he will move up without a title and coming off an ugly loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd4a With Lopez off the board, I\u2019m told the IBF will wait for the outcome of Saturday\u2019s fight between Oscar Duarte and Angel Fierro before ordering a new opponent for Delgado. Interestingly, Duarte and Delgado are stablemates at Robert Garcia\u2019s gym. They are also good friends. I asked Duarte this week if he would have any issue fighting Delgado. \u201cSometimes you have to fight your friends,\u201d Duarte said. Delgado would also take the fight, a source told me. Might make for some uncomfortable conversations with Garcia in the next few weeks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

More Boxing from Sports Illustrated\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, a friend of mine asked for help getting a couple of tickets for the 122-pound showdown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-641266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}