The 23-year-old middleweight contender from Queens, New York, has his eyes on a world title shot after outpointing Euri Cedeno by majority decision on June 27. Among the three titleholders, Alimkhanuly is the one who interests him the least.

“His reputation is slandered,” Tucker told The Ring. “He may have to rebuild himself, and then go from there. He put himself in the back of the line doing the PED stuff. It’s not like he can’t get back in place, but he did it to himself.”

Alimkhanuly (17-0, 12 KOs) was stripped of his IBF title and suspended for one year by the WBO after he returned an adverse analytical finding for the performance-enhancing drug Meldonium. The test was take by VADA ahead of his scheduled unification bout with WBA champion Erislandy Lara on December 6.

Tucker (17-1-1, 7 KOs), The Ring’s No. 10-ranked middleweight, isn’t opposed to facing the 33-year-old Kazakh southpaw if that’s the path to his first world title shot, though he'd want all the proper precautions to be taken in the build-up to the fight to make sure Alimkhanuly is clean. Alimkhanuly last fought in April 2025, stopping Anauel Ngamissengue in the fifth round in Astana, Kazakhstan.

“I’m down to fight him,” Tucker said. “If he's the way to get the championship, I'll fight him, but that's not a fight that really interests me, honestly. You never know with these guys and that PED stuff.”

Tucker’s win over Cedeno (14-1-1, 12 KOs) was his sixth in a row and earned him a trio of secondary titles. After a slow start, Tucker settled into a groove, outboxing the Dominican southpaw to control the rest of the fight.

“I expected exactly what happened to happen,” Tucker said. “I knew that he couldn't outbox me. However, he was a strong guy. If you're strong, I want to show you're not stronger than me, at least for the first two, three rounds, until I decide, ‘OK, now I got your timing.’ Now we fought a little bit. Now you know that I can hurt you too. I knew I could do what I wanted to do.”