3 Japanese champions at Bantamweight?

Remember this name well Ryosuke Nishida, he is the future IBF World Champion in Roosters, he will pass Mandatory for Puerto Rican Emmanuel Rodriguez, the IBF World Champion in Roosters.


Emmanuel Rodriguez is out of luck, he's the worst possible opponent for him. And yet I was the first to praise the Puerto Rican here, once upon a time.

If Takuma Inoue manages to hold on to his WBA Regular title, which would make him WBA Super Champion for the time being, well, he's the only WBA champion at the moment and therefore the only legitimate one in the federation, that would make two Japanese bantamweight champions, but there's more to come if Junto Nakatani manages to take the WBO bantamweight title against Mexico's Alexandro Santiago (which is highly likely). That would make 3 Japanese world champions in the same division.

Apart from the cases of WBC world champion Yu Kimura, WBO world champion Kosei Tanaka and WBA world champion Ryoichi Taguchi, all three of whom were regulars at the same time in 2015 at light flyweight division.

Apart from that particular case, which only lasted a year, I don't remember seeing three Japanese champions jointly reigning over a division in English boxing.

 

One final note: if Ryosuke Nishida wins the IBF World Bantamweight title (which he certainly will against Emmanuel Rodriguez ), he will join Takuma Inoue on the podium for the lowest KO rate for a boxing champion in any category (Nishida's current KO rate is 12.5%).

Nishida's only flaw, unfortunately, is his lack of power, so he is also a pillow puncher.

 

yes that's impressive.