Naoya Inoue vs. Sam Goodman off again, Ye Joon Kim steps into Jan. 24 date against pound-for-pound star

Naoya Inoue's fight against Sam Goodman is off. Again.

Now Inoue wil face South Korea's Ye Joon Kim (21-2-2, 13 KOs) on the Jan. 24 card. The fight will not count as Inoue's mandatory obligation to the IBF.

Inoue, one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world, was previously scheduled to put his undisputed super bantamweight crown on the line against IBF mandatory title challenger Goodman on Christmas Eve 2024 at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, however Goodman was forced out of the date after sustaining a cut over his left eye by English boxer Brad Strand in his final sparring session for the bout.

Goodman received four stitches for the cut and was told by doctors that he couldn't fight for four weeks. As a result, Inoue vs. Goodman was rescheduled for Jan. 24.

However, a reoccurrence of that eye injury has once again forced Goodman to withdraw from his shot at Inoue, and now it seems unlikely that Goodman will get another chance.

The injury reopened during a training session Friday, just two weeks from fight night. According to a report from FOX Sports Australia, Goodman's injury is significantly worse than his original one. Goodman will now require plastic surgery to ensure that the cut doesn't cause him further issues moving forward.

The Australian boxer had avoided sparring for the past couple of weeks, fearing the injury would reopen. Instead, Goodman was "moving around with training partners in the gym" and doing light contact work to train for the bout. Unfortunately for him, the cut still opened during a session doing exactly that.

Goodman was an IBF mandatory challenger, so Inoue will have to make up that mandatory obligation to the IBF. After Jai Opetaia's mandatory challenger, Huseyin Cinkara, withdrew in December from their IBF title fight, No. 10-ranked IBF contender David Nyika stepped in, and that was counted as an IBF mandatory defense for Opetaia because every contender ranked ahead of Nyika turned down the fight. For Inoue's replacement opponent to be considered an IBF mandatory defense, he will need to go through the process of asking for the availability of every ranked IBF contender in descending order.

If he doesn't, the IBF could instruct Inoue to face another mandatory challenger after his Jan. 24 fight, and that would disrupt his 2025 plans, which are understood to feature Alan Picasso in the spring.