By Jeff Aranow: The management for former junior middleweight title challenger Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams (25-1, 15 KOs) and unbeaten Takeshi Inoue (13-0-1, 7 KOs) have reportedly reached a deal to avoid a purse for an International Boxing Federation purse bid. The purse bid was supposed to have taken place on Monday, according to Dan Rafal of ESPN.
The Williams vs. Inoue fight is possible for August 4. The winner of the Williams-Inoue fight will be locked in as the IBF mandatory challenger to IBF junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd.
This is a mismatch on paper, as the 28-year-old Inoue has no experience fighting world class opposition during his 4-year pro career. #2 IBF Inoue has fought exclusively in Japan during his short career against poor opposition. In Inoue’s last fight, he squeaked by journeyman Yuki Nonaka (31-10-3, 10 KOs) last April in winning a close 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-113, 115-113 and 116-112. Nonaka was easily beaten by 154 lb. contender Dennis Hogan by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision last October in his previous fight.
It wasn’t a good sign that Inoue struggled to beat Nonaka. It suggests that the IBF has ranked him too high for his actual talent level. The IBF’s rankings of fighters is sometimes hard to understand, as they rank certain guys highly when they have little experience and/or talent. For example, the IBF recently ranked 22-year-old Carlos Ocampo at No.1 at welterweight, and ordered IBF 147 lb. champion Errol Spence Jr. to defend against him. Spence quickly obliterated Ocampo by a 1st round knockout in their fight on June 16 in Frisco, Texas. With Inoue’s record, it’s quite possible that the 5’11” J-Rock Williams will do the same thing to him as Spence did to Ocampo.
Williams, 28, was stopped in the 5th round by former IBF junior middleweight champion Jermall Charlo two years ago in December 2016. J-Rock was totally outclassed by Charlo in that encounter. It looked like Williams wasn’t ready for that level of a fighter at that early stage in his career. Perhaps with more seasoning, Williams would have stood a better chance and given Charlo some problems. Since that loss, Williams have won his last three fights in beating Joshua Conley, Ishe Smith and Nathanial Galimore. You can argue that J-Rock’s last two opponents are far better fighters than Inoue. If the IBF wanted to order Williams to fight in an IBF title eliminator, they should have made Gaimore or Smith as his opponent rather than Inoue. By letting Williams fight a guy like Inoue, the IBF is making J-Rock the mandatory challenger for Hurd, for all intents and purposes. Inoue is nowhere near the same league as Williams, and that’s going to be apparent as soon as the bell rings on August 4 in their fight.