Is boxing’s most powerful promoter on the cusp of doing the much-awaited Naoya Inoue vs Johnriel Casimero super fight?

Turki Alalshikh, who heads the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) of Saudi Arabia and owner of The Ring magazine, is said to be testing the waters if an Inoue-Casimero matchup is worth staging.

Following Casimero’s brutal fourth-round knockout of Mexican Luis “Pantera” Nery in Japan, The Ring’s social media division began including the Filipino puncher on its posts.

Two weeks after Casimero’s knockout of Nery, The Ring has featured him at least three times and the public’s response to them has been tremendous.

Alalshikh’s GEA has produced a bevy of big fights the last two years, including those of Terence Crawford and Canelo Alvarez and the heavyweights featuring Oleksandry Usyk, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

The last major card by Alalshikh took place recently at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

Casimero and Inoue were originally scheduled to fight each other in April 2020 in Las Vegas but Covid happened and promoters were unable to revisit the mouthwatering matchup.

With Casimero, who is being promoted by Koki Kameda, making waves and Inoue apparently running out of topnotch opposition, Alalshikh might be the missing part of the puzzle that could finally make it happen.

The undefeated Inoue, nicknamed “Monster,” holds all the four belts in the super-bantamweight class.