Unification has been hinted at, WBC & IBF bantamweight titles. Inoue has a defense lined up sometime later this year against #10 ranked 11-0-2 compatriot Seiya Tsutsumi. Of course the blockbuster marquee that everyone is salivating over is Junto Nakatani versus Takuma's brother Naoya. Takuma, presuming he gets past Tsutsumi, would be grist to mill here IMO (he lacks the power to keep Nakatani off him, and being dropped by Oubaali and Saludar bodes poorly for his chances to handle Nak's) but it would serve to set up the "avenging my brother" angle, kicking the Japanese box office for Naoya vs. Junto into the mesosphere. Then again, Jun has yet to face a boxer nearly as skilled as the younger Inoue sibling, let alone the older. Takuma would be facing an uphill battle (literally, giving up 4" of height and 4½" of reach) but with a pitch perfect performance and off night for his 26 year old peer it isn't altogether unthinkable he could pull it off.
Oubaali a southpaw dropped Inoue and hurt him several times, Junto KO's Takuma so hard, he'll wake up thinking his name is Tacoma... you know, like the city in Washington.
I was super high on Ouballi until the Donaire fight, thought he would absolutely walk through him. Junto would do a number on Takuma, waste of a fight at 118. Junto to move up, have 2 fights at the weight and then challenge Naoya autumn next year, that's the dream.
I haven't been overly impressed with the feather fisted Takuma. It may take awhile for Nakatani to get to Inoue but when he does the fight will be over pretty quickly.
Nakatani wants to become undisputed at 118, and Takuma will be the first victim. I think it's a mismatch with with Nakatani knocking out Takuma in the first 6 rounds. The talent and power gap is just too great.
Takuma's come along pretty far. He's fast, explosive, quick on his feet, has good boxing ability, but yeah, Nakatani stops him. Don't know about pretty quickly, though.
Nakatani knocks out Takuma and it’ll most likely be one sided as well. If Nakatani ends up beating Takuma, let alone stop him I think that’s going to give Naoya Inoue more reason to want to make that fight happen in the future. The build up to Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani is going to be big for Japanese boxing.
Sorry for being unclear. I didn't mean he would stop him quickly. What I meant was that once Nakatani got to Inoue he would end it quickly.
