Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani in the works

Hell of a fight but I don't think Junto has enough to beat Inoue. He'd give it his best shot though that's for sure.

 

Good, actually great fight but at the earliest it would be Aug-Sep of 25? These fights do not need to be on the backburner slow simmering like this.

There is no buildup over a huge fight that should be longer than 3 months. They're talking about basically a year out...........smh

 

The Bob Arum special.

 

Very annoying.....................just squeeze all the mileage of a potential rivalry you can squeeze smh

 

Top Rank marinating again, classic.

 

That's a good news and I will bet on Nakatani.

Japan has some good talents and decent boxing school.

I really hope more Japaanese boxers will get their hype.

 

This is the only fight i want to see.

 

Could you not spread blatant made up lies about Tsutsumi just so you can your personal agenda against Inoue in? Tsutsumi from the beginning has only talked about how fighting Takuma again was his dream and goal ever since he became a pro, and in fact that the existence of Takuma was what made him pursue boxing as a professional. Tsutsumi didn't see himself becoming a professional after he graduated school, but seeing the same aged Takuma fight as a pro in the world level made him want to follow the same path as he "didn't want to be 'that guy' who is just watching the TV and gloating to his coworkers that he fought this guy (Takuma) when they were young", and with this fight, he said that the first arc of his boxing story is officially completed. He looks forward to what the next arc may potentially bring, but right now he just plans to savour the moment where he made his dream come true.

He has no intentions of moving up to SB face Naoya, nor even wants to consider it, and certainly doesn't think he'll have any chance at him. He also don't really intend on facing Nakatani either, given his answer during his interview about a potential Nakatani unification. "...frankly right now I don't see any chance of me winning, basically as close to 0%. However, in a few years if a situation comes by where I am offered a chance for an unification with Nakatani, I will certainly consider it" which is basically a polite way of saying "I am waiting for Nakatani to move up and out of the division" because there is no way Nakatani is still in bantam in a few years.

By the way considering his work ethics and his heart and the Anaguchi incident, I'm very happy that Tsutsumi was able to become a world champion. Just don't make him sound like a smug fool just because you hate Inoue.

As for blaming Naoya for not fighting his "Japanese brothers", it isn't his fault that most of his "Japanese brothers" were either ranked too low in the world to make the fight even make sense, or were desperately dodging being in the same division as him at the same time. There is a reason there was a huge influx of Japanese boxers that went up to 118 shortly after he vacated all the belts.

Naoya's first 118 fight was on May 2018 against Jamie McDonnell, and until Nov 2019 he was occupied with WBSS which had zero Japanese opponents competing to begin with. In 2020 due to COVID, he only had one fight against Jason Moloney and it was in the US so no reason he would fight a Japanese opponent then. In 2022 he fought twice in Japan, but both were for the belt to go undisputed. That leaves 2021, but of the two that he fought that year Dasmarinas was a mandatory by IBF (the choice being awful is an IBF issue) which literally leaves Dec 2021 voluntary defense as his only real open slot to fight a Japanese opponent in bantam. Now the catch is...which Japanese boxers were a world ranked contender in bantamweight IBF around September 2021 where Inoue could've considered fighting? By the way WBA had zero Japanese rankers, and he only had those two belts at the time so they had to be ranked in one or another.

Takuma: ranked 8th in IBF, but not fighting regardless of ranking for obvious reasons.
Nishida: ranked number 12 on IBF. Just won the WBO-AP regional belt against Higa in April. Zero intention to fight an unified champion on his 5th career fight.
Kurihara: ranked number 14 on IBF. Coming off a loss against Takuma.

Nakatani, Takei, Higa, Tsutsumi, Ishida...they were all in a different division or simply unranked by neither organizations. 118 was dead of Japanese boxers excluding the Inoue brothers until AFTER Naoya cleaned them up and went up then everyone else followed suit.

 

That's 3 fights away for Inoue but at least there appears to be a plan.

 

Inoue has to get through the Albion Park Assassin Sam Goodman first.

 

It’s a helluva matchup..

can’t wait.

 

Goodman is good mate but Inoue will slap the pinkish hue from his face. Sam will be looking like Uncle Leo after Inoue disposes of him in brutal fashion.