In the continental battle of the North American hosts, Mexico stand on top after three rounds. The question now is: who can stay in the heat of battle the longest?

It is undeniable that any World Cup is a better spectacle when a second-tier host nation comes to the party: be it Sweden in 1958, South Korea in 2002 or Russia in 2018. The beauty of this year’s tournament is that there are three and while all of them have progressed rather comfortably to the last-32 , only the Mexicans have a perfect record to their name. For the United States, this was not so much a reality check as a reminder of how quickly a contest can drift into the hands of your opponent, especially when chances are not converted at this level.

Has their momentum been stymied by a last-gasp Turkish sucker-punch? Perhaps a smidge. Yet the hard facts are that a last-32 date in Santa Clara next Wednesday, which we now know will be against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was already assured after an electrifying opening two matches. And still, a few key objectives for Mauricio Pochettino on Thursday night were executed. Emerge unscathed in the injury department? Tick. Onto the knockouts unimpacted by needless suspensions? Tick. Re-introduce star man Christian Pulisic into the World Cup fray? Tick.

Pulisic’s comeback from a 13-day absence due to a calf injury is particularly timely and significant, six days before the real business begins once more. Here, the AC Milan winger, his country’s undisputed starlet, looked lively, nippy and completely unperturbed by his near two-week lay-off. In fact, with more fortune and accuracy, he would have netted his first goal of the tournament: a shot well-saved, a ricochet that hit the post and a curling effort just wide. The US manager, and the excitable public watching on across this vast land, will hope that it will burn a fire deep within the 27-year-old as they head up the West Coast next week.

Is he fit enough to start in six days? Surely, one thinks.

Yet paradoxically after such a wretched first two games, in nicking a winner with the last kick of the game courtesy of substitute Kaan Ayhan, Turkey haven’t just shown up late to the party with three drinks in tow; the dance has been and gone and everyone has trotted off and found a cab to their next destination. They end their time in the US with a victory which will, undeniably, make them feel a sorry sense of what if. Defeats to Australia and Paraguay had already been their undoing and they will fly back to Europe out of LAX on Friday morning after another tournament of underachievement.

For a match with nothing riding on it, such is the convoluted and somewhat mystifying decision to make head-to-head the group-stage tie-breaker over goal-difference, this one started out at a rate of knots. Pochettino made nine changes to his starting XI – the fourth-most alterations from one game to another in World Cup history – yet the US started where they left off 13 days ago against Paraguay in this 70,000-seater greenhouse in Inglewood.

One of those reinforcements, Celtic defender Auston Trusty, rifled in at the back post to open the scoring, sprinting in jubilation to his bench to celebrate. At two minutes and 14 seconds, it was the second-fastest US goal in World Cup history, after Clint Dempsey’s 30-second strike against Ghana in 2014. Yet the lead did not last long and, for a beleguered Turkey outfit, there was finally something to shout about for their midfielder wonderkid.

Tipped to be a shining light this summer, Real Madrid playmaker Arda Guler will head home with a World Cup goal to his name. Teed up in the box by striker Baris Alper Yilmaz, Guler controlled delicately with his right before smashing home with his left beyond back-up US keeper Matt Turner. For a side who held the unceremonious statistic of the most shots at this World Cup without a goal – 62, the most-ever in the first two rounds without finding the back of the net – it was a rare moment of joy.

Twenty minutes later, Guler was at the centre of Turkey’s second, slipping in Eren Elmali in the box whose cut-back found Besiktas’ Orkun Kokcu, who diverted into the corner. Coming just seconds after US centre back Mark McKenzie had a goal ruled out for offside, it was a tough pill to swallow – or at least as tough as it can be, in a dead rubber of a game.

Pochettino resisted making changes at the interval and his loyalty to his back-up troops – even if he may stray away from terms such as “second-string” – was quickly rewarded. From a set-piece, the ball broke to midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, son of former head coach Gregg, who smashed home with his right foot at the near-post.

Yet beyond a goal or the plethora of celebrities shown on the 70,000-square-foot Infinity Screen hovering above the pitch – for Leonardo DiCaprio hiding behind a Coca-Cola bottle, you also had Paris Hilton elaboratively dancing and waving – nothing could stimulate this fanbase more than the arrival of Pulisic onto the pitch.

Pochettino gave his star asset just over 30 minutes to acclimatise to proceedings and he almost made an immediate impact as he worked Turkey keeper Ugurcan Cakir before Brenden Aaronson inexplicably struck the rebound wide; a sight Leeds fans will be all too accustomed to seeing.

Minutes later, a ricochet off Pulisic hit the post before he went whiskers wide with a curling left-foot effort. Chants of “USA, USA” saw their side to the close and an all-square scoreline looked inevitable before, out of nothing, Ayhan tapped home Can Uzun’s cross with the last kick of the game, following a delicious Guler nut-meg on, of all people, Pulisic. The licking of Turkish wounds will be made more palatable after their late flourish.

Yet for the US, despite the late blow, it should be rather simple to look ahead, as their squad and manager enter a period a decade in the making. Momentum has not veered irretrievably off course. How far can the ride take them? An expectant public waits with giddy anticipation.

File image of FIFA president Gianni Infantino© AFP

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

A swing that comes over the top is the bane of many a recreational golfer. Go to your local range and you’ll likely see dozens of players who struggle with the move. As a result, they hit weak fades or slices, and rarely have any real shot of becoming a lower handicap.

The reason the over-the-top swing is so common is because it is a result of a swing that feels correct. One of the main reasons for an over-the-top swing is that the golfer does not sequence the swing properly. With this move, you’ll see the golfer start begin the downswing with rotation rather than shift. But when you do this, you throw the clubhead outside the hands, and you have no choice but to come over the top in order to hit the ball.

When you watch a good ball striker hit the ball, the order of operations is reversed. Once they reach the top of the backswing, their first move down is a lateral shift toward the target. After that shift occurs, the rotation follows, allowing for the club to work more from the inside.

In the video below, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Greg Phillips of the Titleist Performance Institute shares an easy feel you can use to incorporate this sequencing into your swing.

How to shift then rotate

It can be tempting to get to the top of the swing and then try to unwind as quickly as possible. Your brain tells you that this is the best way to generate power, but in reality, it’s poor sequencing and largely inefficient. If you want to hit the ball like the best ball striker, you need to shift pressure into the lead side first and then allow your body to unwind.

Phillips like to teach this by putting alignment sticks on the ground that bisect the student’s stance on a diagonal from behind their trail foot out to in front of their lead foot. The goal on the downswing is to shift the pressure along that diagonal line before starting the rotation in the downswing.

“A lot of times I’ll put down alignment rods or I’ll put down clubs out here [right of the target],” Phillips says. “I want you to line up straight, but I want you to pretend like you’re going to hit it [off to the right].”

When you do this, the club will naturally work more on an in-to-out path with more natural shallowness.

“You’re twisting early,” Phillips says. “And I need you to have a little bit of lateral.”

India’s top Grandmasters Pravin Thipsay, SL Narayanan, Abhimanyu Puranik, Srinath Narayanan, SP Sethuraman, and Shyam Sundar M (Designed by TimesofIndia.com)

NEW DELHI: Earning an official FIDE (the primary governing body of chess) rating has never been easy. A player must participate in FIDE-rated tournaments, which are organised under strict regulations and often require travel, entry fees, and consistent preparation. To receive a rating, a player needs to face already rated opponents and achieve the required performance in rated games.That tradition, however, may soon change.In a sweeping policy shift that has sparked a profound existential debate, FIDE and World Chess, an official commercial partner of the governing body, recently unveiled the “First Rating Experiment”. The two-year pilot program will allow casual enthusiasts to earn their very first official over-the-board (OTB) blitz and rapid ratings entirely through online play on worldchess.com. It is an audacious attempt to democratise a historically insular sport, as the governing body aims to expand the current global pool of 500,000 rated players into the millions so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry will then have a chance to earn their first FIDE rating.To govern this new digital frontier, FIDE plans to employ an AI-driven fair-play screening framework and a specialised technical coefficient designed to align online performance with physical standards. To protect the upper echelons of the sport, the governing body has also installed a regulatory firewall, where these online-incubated ratings will be strictly capped at 1,800 Elo.Though FIDE intends to launch the program this July, following a period of community review, India’s Grandmasters, the vanguard of the modern chess renaissance, are locked in a fierce cerebral tug-of-war over the decision.For some, it represents a visionary dismantling of economic barriers; for others, though, it is a dangerous compromise of the game’s ultimate currency, which lies in the integrity of the rating system.

‘An unnecessary move’ by FIDE?

According to several Indian Grandmasters, the boundary between online and offline chess must remain completely sacred. In an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com, Grandmaster (GM) SL Narayanan was blunt in his disapproval.“I think it was an unnecessary move from FIDE. You can’t combine online tournaments and then translate the rating into over-the-board rating because the rules are different for online and offline chess,” he said. “For recreational players, they would consider this a welcome move, but the real problem is (that) it could affect the credibility of rating system.”This sentiment was fiercely echoed on X (formerly Twitter) by prominent coach GM Srinath Narayanan, who expressed deep reservations about online security. He wrote, “Very skeptical about the efficacy of fairplay checks. Online play and over the board ratings shouldn’t be mixed.”GM SP Sethuraman also took to X to highlight how this integration could destabilize an already fragile rating ecosystem, “I already feel that the chess rating system is far from perfectly calibrated across different regions, formats, and levels of activity. We have already seen significant rating inflation and deflation issues over the years, making it difficult to compare ratings across generations. “Introducing official online ratings that can be converted into OTB ratings may create even more noise and uncertainty. While the intention is to make chess more accessible, I hope FIDE proceeds very carefully.”Offering a more relaxed but similarly cautious take, GM Abhimanyu Puranik told this website, “Generally, (it’s) not great to link online and OTB play, but rating itself starts so low that it doesn’t change so much.”‘It’s a very tough decision to doubt players just based on the moves’Speaking to TimesofIndia.com, Chennai’s one of the most reputed coaches, GM Shyam Sundar M, admitted to being highly surprised by the news, weighing the massive operational shift against the dark cloud of digital cheating:“The good thing is that FIDE is trying some new initiatives… But, combining online chess for over-the-board rating, I’m not sure. I mean, that too playing without physical board. Like, a hybrid system, I understand. That makes some sense as well.”Shyam Sundar suggested that a hybrid system, where players gather in physical regional halls monitored by local arbiters and 24-hour Zoom surveillance, would be far more secure and equally economical for organisers.Expressing his core concern about anti-cheating algorithms, he added, “I firmly believe that even one innocent should not be punished. It’s not easy, and it’s a very tough decision to doubt players just based on the moves, on the game quality in two or three or four games.”However, he remains open to the future, adding, “Maybe based on AI or even based on the server. Maybe something like that browser with AI, maybe it is possible. If it happens, maybe it’s good.”

Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay welcomes the initiative

In stark contrast, Arjuna Awardee and veteran GM Pravin Thipsay hailed the initiative as a visionary leap as he noted that less than 1% of the world’s chess enthusiasts actually have the means to play in physical, rated tournaments.“I think FIDE has taken a bold step… There are crores of players… who play chess online, and they play quite regularly as Karpov had founded one-third of the Western world play chess almost every day, but they play with the computer, and then they remain away from the mainstream. And somewhere, the barricade between the online chess players and over-the-board chess players had to be removed, and it’s a good step towards that,” he told TimesofIndia.com.Thipsay acknowledged that the system could face serious problems if cheating is left uncontrolled or if the rating coefficient is calculated incorrectly, pointing out that FIDE’s previous coefficient changes for under-18 players had “boomeranged and failed”. Yet, he believes the 1,800 ceiling is an excellent filter.“If somebody crosses 1,700 or 1,750, there’s a reasonable chance of that particular player trying to play chess more seriously, be an over-the-board player,” he added. “So I think a good initiative, we’ll have a large number of players coming to over-the-board chess.”With FIDE currently gathering feedback before its final rollout, the chess world stands at an unprecedented crossroads. What do you think about this proposal? Let’s know in the comments.

Manchester United have been linked with several players in the summer transfer window, including West Ham star Mateus Fernandes

Manchester United are bracing themselves for a crucial transfer window as manager Michael Carrick looks to build on his promising start at Old Trafford. The club will be eager to improve upon last season’s third-place finish and make their mark on their return to the Champions League.

Brazilian midfielder Ederson is poised to join United from Atalanta, with an early agreement reached for the 26-year-old. Further signings are expected, however, as the club seek to fill the void left by the departing Casemiro and strengthen their midfield options.

United are claimed to be facing stiff competition from Tottenham Hotspur in their efforts to land West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes. The Portuguese international is among several players linked with a switch to Old Trafford, along with Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson and Newcastle United’s Sandro Tonali.

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In terms of outgoings, goalkeeper Andre Onana is reportedly edging closer to the exit door following a season spent on loan. MEN Sport takes a closer look at some of the most significant stories emerging from around Old Trafford.

Mateus Fernandes transfer twist

United may face an unexpected obstacle in their attempts to sign West Ham midfielder Mateus Fernandes. The Portugal international is reportedly valued at £80 million by the Hammers.

The Sun reports that Tottenham are “prepared to offer more” than United in terms of wages. Roberto De Zerbi’s side finished 17th last season but are claimed to be willing to pay higher salaries for their top targets.

Unlike Spurs, United can offer Fernandes the opportunity to compete in the Champions League next season. However, it remains to be seen whether Tottenham’s readiness to pay higher wages will be a blow to United’s transfer strategy.

Southampton are set to receive 15 per cent of any potential transfer fee for Fernandes after selling him for £38m last year. The midfielder was ultimately unable to help West Ham avoid relegation, netting three goals and providing four assists across 36 league games.

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Andre Onana ‘agrees’ terms

Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana is edging closer to securing a move away from the club. The 30-year-old joined United from Inter Milan in 2023 but spent last season on loan at Trabzonspor.

The Cameroon international is set to return to the club in another loan move, with the Turkish outfit covering all of his wages and paying United a loan fee.

Onana lost his position as United’s first-choice last term, with new signing Senne Lammens taking his place. The former Ajax star subsequently made 33 appearances for Trabzonspor, where he lifted the Turkish Cup.

Thousands of Man United fans upgraded their matchday last season. This is how they did it.

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A Hall of Fame inductee has given one specific reason for why none of this era’s top heavyweights, including Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, would have defeated him in his prime.

Usyk is the current king of the heavyweight division, holding the IBF, WBA and WBC titles, with Daniel Dubois currently in possession of the WBO belt.

The likes of Fury and Joshua have previously reigned as long-term champions in the division, but is is another man that ruled for several years that has made the claim about the current generation.

Larry Holmes is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweights in history, known for his punishing jab and dominant surge between 1978 and 1985.

During this seven-year period, Holmes made 19 successful world title defences against the likes of Ken Norton and Earnie Shavers, while controversially claiming a 10th-round stoppage over a faded version of Muhammad Ali.

The American was then relieved of his IBF title after suffering back-to-back points defeats to Michael Spinks, before a prime ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson stopped him in round four of their 1988 encounter.

During his separate reigns as world champion, though, Holmes doubts that any modern heavyweight could have lived with him over 15 rounds.

This includes current unified and lineal champion Usyk, who has proven a master of the 12-frame distance but will never complete a sanctioned 15-rounder.

Speaking with CanadaCasino, Holmes said his “determination” and “willpower” would have been too much even for the masterful Ukrainian.

“I don’t think today’s fighters have the heart of the guys from the 70s and 80s. We had determination and willpower to go out there for 15 rounds.

“Today’s fighters could never have done 15 rounds. I believe I would have beat them all. I was always ready. Every fight was like the last serious one.”

While Holmes has expressed his view on the matter, there is no way of knowing how the likes of Usyk, Fury and Joshua would fare over 15 rounds.

It could be argued, however, that, in a prime-for-prime battle with Usyk, there is no guarantee of a Holmes victory.

The retirements of stalwarts like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli do seem to have taken a little bit of shine from India’s T20I team. While the likes of Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson have added a new attacking flavour to the side, it is Vaibhav Sooryavanshi‘s selection to the national squad that has taken the fans’ interest to an all-new level. After a historic Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign where he dismantled world-class bowling units to claim the Orange Cap with 776 runs to his name, calls for him to become India’s youngest-ever debutant during the T20I tour of Ireland have reached the team management.

Yet, ahead of the series opener in Belfast, India’s team management chose to make expectations clear. It is a decision that might disappoint fans eager for a glimpse of the future, but it is entirely the right call for the health of the dressing room.

Speaking ahead of the match, India’s batting coach Sitanshu Kotak explained the team’s philosophy perfectly. While acknowledging that Sooryavanshi is an “extraordinary talent” who remains unfazed by the opponent he is facing or the stage he is performing on, Kotak drew a firm line between nurturing a prodigy and maintaining basic sporting fairness.

For Gambhir, It’s ‘Team’ Over Individuals

The India batting coach perfectly summed up the philosophy that has been set by head coach Gautam Gambhir, which is to put the ‘team’ ahead of individuals.

“This evening, the captain and head coach will decide on the team. If he plays, great; if he doesn’t play, for me, that is also great because he is part of the Indian team. I am sure that he will get his dues and his opportunities. So, I don’t think that just to give him an opportunity, we should drop someone who has already been scoring runs. That also won’t be right. I think there is a very thin line between trying to give somebody an opportunity and being unfair to some other player,” he said in the pre-match press conference.

Dropping an established, in-form player – be it Sanju Samson or Abhishek Sharma – simply to hand out a historic debut creates a dangerous precedent. The core reasons behind the management’s cautious approach were explained thoroughly by Kotak.

A dressing room thrives on the belief that runs equal rewards. If a player who has consistently performed is benched just to accommodate a media-driven debut, it erodes trust within the squad. Furthermore, at just 15, Sooryavanshi has a decade and a half of top-flight cricket ahead of him. Allowing him to absorb the national team’s culture from the dugout removes the immediate pressure of international expectations.

Indian cricket is currently blessed with an overwhelming abundance of T20 top-order talent, presenting a tough selection puzzle for the leadership group. Under the guidance of Gambhir, India’s philosophy has remained clear: the team comes first. Sooryavanshi’s time in the blue jersey will undoubtedly arrive, but waiting for a natural vacancy rather than forcing one ensures that his international career starts on a foundation of genuine merit rather than viral hype.

(Sahil Bakshi is an Editor with NDTV)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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Ivory Coast reached the FIFA World Cup knockout stage for the first time in their history after Nicolas Pepe scored twice in a 2-0 victory over Curaçao on Wednesday.

The Elephants only needed a draw to qualify after winning one of their first two Group E matches. Instead, they sealed all three points to finish second in the group with six points.

Pepe gave Ivory Coast the perfect start in the seventh minute. Yan Diomande won the ball from Curaçao’s defence before setting up the former Arsenal winger, who calmly tapped into an empty net.

Pepe completed his brace in the 65th minute with a fine left-footed finish into the top corner, leaving goalkeeper Eloy Room with no chance.

The victory also saw Ivory Coast win two matches at a World Cup for the first time.

Despite their exit, Curaçao produced another spirited display and created several chances. Their best opportunity came just before half-time when Juninho Bacuna broke into the penalty area but fired his shot wide of the near post.

Curaçao, the smallest nation by population to play at a men’s FIFA World Cup, finished bottom of Group E with one point from three matches. However, they leave the tournament with credit after earning their first-ever World Cup point in a draw against Ecuador.

Ivory Coast will now face the runners-up from Group I, either France or Norway, in the Round of 32 in Arlington, Texas, on June 30.

What to do with one more World Cup group stage game when you’ve already won the group? The answer is score two minutes into the game and don’t look back. Germany did the first part, but then faded as momentum was replaced by a messy loss that exposes this team’s limitations.

There is a way to spin this as a defeat that can sharpen the minds, that can blow away any complacency ahead of the knockouts.  Germany captain Joshua Kimmich was certainly bullish in defeat.

“We keep inviting the opponent to attack by turning the ball over, which makes them stronger,” Kimmich said on MagentaTV, adding: “Fortunately, this doesn’t change much. But we can’t afford any more losses. That much is clear. We can’t let in one or two goals every game. We have to minimize the number of turnovers, and then we can beat anyone.”

But that’s not how it felt in East Rutherford at the final whistle. It felt like Germany had gone from a team in form, exceeding the expectations of their fans, riding the waves of joy that come with big wins and last-minute wins, to one stopped short in its tracks. The song that has accompanied this team at the tournament so far has been “The train has no brakes”. Today, not only were the brakes on, but the team appeared to derail.

Another game endured rather than enjoyed

David Raum started in place of the injured Nathaniel Brown (who is expected to return for Germany’s knockout game) and had a game to forget. Antonio Rüdiger replaced the injured Nico Schlotterbeck and was slow to start, before improving. But they were not alone. Felix Nmecha, who has been Germany’s standout at the tournament so far, struggled. Aleksandar Pavlovic played himself out of the second half, having also been booked.

It was also tough on Leroy Sane, who scored Germany’s opener and would have been the story of the day after weeks of strong media criticism. In the end, even his performance fell away in the face of Germany’s collective disappointment.

The result was made worse by the fact Germany’s opening goal shouldn’t have stood — American referee Tori Penso bizarrely decided not to penalize Aleksandar Pavlovic in the build-up after the Bayern player’s boot ended up in the face of an opponent. Add to that the penalty that Germany never got because of a foul by Sane in the build-up, and it was a day where so much that could go wrong did go wrong.

Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz worked hard off the ball, but are struggling to impose themselves on it. Rüdiger’s comments last week calling on Germany’s attacking players feel even more telling after this defeat: “No pressure, but we will need you.” 

Depending on which of Germany’s leaders you listened to, desire was also an issue. Or not.

“The difference today was that the opponent wanted to win more than us,” Kimmich said afterwards. 

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“Ecuador wanted it more than us? That’s nonsense,” said Nagelsmann, in stark contrast.

Disjointed and dismantled

Germany’s need is now greater than ever. Perhaps Deniz Undav will be unleashed from the start. Here in the New York New Jersey stadium, the crowd again called for the striker, and once again Nagelsmann responded. But this time, despite his best efforts, there were to be no heroics from the Stuttgart man, who had three goals and two assists from two substitute appearances before this.

A raft of changes were made, perhaps most notably Malick Thiaw on for Kimmich at right back as Germany swapped to a back three. As one Germany fan remarked afterwards, it felt like a friendly game.

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“Of course, we made substitutions differently than we would have otherwise — perhaps at moments when we absolutely needed another goal. But I can’t say to any player now that he didn’t give it his all. That’s far too simplistic for me,” Nagelsmann told MagentaTV afterwards.

Gonzalo Plata nipping in to poke the ball into the goal just before it landed in Manuel Neuer’s hands felt like a natural consequence of all that had come before. For Neuer, so far this has been a strange comeback. He had no chance of stopping Nilson Angulo’s thunderbolt and for Plata’s winner, he didn’t see the winger coming. Ecuador ended the game with two goals from just three shots on target.

No stopping the yellow wave

The scenes at fulltime were not for Germany. They were for Ecuador. A sea of yellow, rippling joy at booking their spot in the knockout rounds with an historic win against the four-time World Cup winners. Tears, children on shoulders, lung-bursting songs down the concourse — Ecuador’s fans knew what they had done and made sure everyone knew about it.

Germany left the field swiftly, briefly waving at their fans, but keen to disappear from the cement cauldron of New York New Jersey Stadium that exposed their own heaviness. Was recalling Manuel Neuer the right decision? Is this group just not as good as it thought it was two weeks ago? Will Paraguay or Australia be a stumbling block? The questions will swirl. In the meantime, Nagelsmann wants time.

“The most important lesson we can take is patience,” Nagelsmann said afterwards. “When you start so well, we have to focus more on patience. If we get the lead we have to be more calm in certain situations.”

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It won’t be long before we find out how calm Germany and Nagelsmann really are. More importantly, we’ll find out whether something more than just a game was lost here in East Rutherford.

Edited by: Matt Pearson

Jesse Rodriguez is in hot pursuit of a clash with Naoya Inoue, and four-division world champion Roy Jones Jr has shared his thoughts on the proposed fight.

Rodriguez has captured world honours at flyweight, super-flyweight and now bantamweight, having knocked out Antonio Vargas to claim the WBA bantamweight world title earlier this month, in what was anticipated to be a pitstop on route to an Inoue fight at super-bantamweight.

That appeared to change following that win, as his trainer Robert Garcia declared he would prefer ‘Bam’ to have one more fight at 118lbs before moving up again to take on Inoue, with WBO world champion Christian Medina appearing the most likely opponent.

It therefore seems as though Rodriguez will delay the Inoue fight until 2027, but Jones Jr told ATS Boxing that the decision does not mean that the Texan is ducking ‘The Monster’.

“Inoue is not just another fighter. He is not somebody where you are just going to walk in off of the street and beat him, you have got to be ready to deal with all of those things.

“That’s why I’m sure that Garcia wants him to get a fight at 122lbs to get used to that first, so at least he knows, or has a feel, what he is dealing with, then we fight.

“He said, ‘one fight, then we fight’. That is not a duck game, that is just him getting his fighter prepared.”

Jones then went on to highlight the importance of the fight, believing that Rodriguez could assume Inoue’s position as the pound-for-pound number one if he is able to hand the Japanese superstar a first career defeat.

“If he goes and challenges and defeats Inoue, he may become the number one pound-for-pound guy in the sport right now.” 

It is rumoured that Inoue-Rodriguez will take place in February 2027, with both men expected to face alternate opponents in the autumn.