Fox Sports Australia revealed today that Sam Goodman, whose IBF-mandated title shot against Naoya Inoue got pushed from December 24th to January 24th due to a cut suffered in training, re-opened the cut while sparring and is once again out of the fight.
Goodman (19-0, 8 KO) will reportedly undergo plastic surgery to fix the cut, which is “significantly worse” than the previous one. Mike Coppinger claims he’ll be out six months, which would almost assuredly force the IBF to either name a new contender or allow the WBA (Murodjon Akhmadaliev) or WBC (Alan Picasso) to advance to the front of the queue.
It sucks for Goodman, but you’ll recall that he previously kicked the can down the road by taking a stay-busy fight last July instead of jumping into the title bout.
Per Coppinger, Inoue (28-0, 25 KO) will remain on the card against a new opponent. The most expedient option on paper is world-ranked Toshiki Shinomachi (19-1-3, 12 KO), who’s already on the undercard and sits at no. 6 with both the IBF and WBC.