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Do you like Naoya Inoue? Yeah? Well you’re going to love Junto Nakatani. After capturing a flyweight and super flyweight title in boxing, Nakatani is moving up to bantamweight to go for his third championship. He will be taking on Alexandro Santiago on ESPN+ this weekend looking for that third title. Check out this guy’s highlights below:
Junto Nakatani: Fetching the violence
Junto Nakatani is currently 26-0 with 19 coming by way of knockout. He’s battered many opponents at a high level, including Andrew Moloney for the WBO Super Flyweight title.
Santiago is no walk in the park. With a 28-4-5 record, Santiago has beat fighters like Nonito Donaire, and took Gary Antoine Russell to a majority decision which he lost. He is game and a tricky fight.
Nakatani will have a tough challenge on his hands. But tough challenges are nothing new for the Japanese sensation.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nakatani took on Giemel Magramo for the vacant WBO flyweight title, a fight he won via knockout in round eight. In his first defense, a bout with former flyweight champion Angel Acosta, where he broke his opponent’s nose and finish him in round eight.
In 2022, he moved up to super flyweight and challenged Francisco Rodriguez Jr. for the WBO Super Flyweight title. He dominated and won that fight by decision. But Junto Nakatani wasn’t done at 115 just yet.
In 2023, Nakatani was ordered by the WBO to face reigning champion Kazuto Ioka. Ioka had other plans and vacated the belt to fight Joshua Franco. The WBO tapped Andrew Moloney to face Nakatani for the newly vacant title. Nakatani shined in that fight.
Over 12 rounds, he proceeded to beat up Moloney, dropping him several times and finally, with one punch, put him away in emphatic fashion in round 12.
Standing in his way will be one of his tougher challenges to date: Alexandro Santiago.
The Alexandro Santiago problem
Alexandro Santiago doesn’t seem like much of a challenge when looking at the odds of this fight. Nakatani has swelled to a -900 favorite leading you to believe that he should easily outclass Santiago. Nakatani may just go that; we have no clue what his ceiling is just yet.
Santiago defeated four weight world champion Nonito Donaire. Granted, Donaire was 40 at the time, but Santiago took a decision to nab this belt that Junto Nakatani is now fighting for.
Alexandro Santiago took Gary Antonio Russell to a majority decision as well in a rather close fights on the score card.
I’m not trying to say that Alexandro Santiago is going to be a threat to Nakatani come Saturday. What I am saying is that Santiago has a knack for fighting at a higher level than the odds suggest and he’s done so in the past.
A Japanese boxing renaissance
Junto Nakatani fighting for his third world title in a different weight is just the latest in a surging Japanese boxing movement.
Of course, Japanese boxing is currently led by Naoya Inoue. Inoue is a two weight undisputed champion and has won world titles in four weights. He beat Stephen Fulton and Paul Butler in a year’s time to go undisputed twice in a year which is unheard of timeframe wise.
Naoya Inoue may be the most well known, and deservingly so with what he’s accomplished. But there are other fantastic fighters coming out of Japan as well.
Takuma Inoue is the WBA World Bantamweight champion and is the sibling of Naoya Inoue. Takuma Inoue defends his belt on Junto Nakatani’s undercard this weekend.
There’s also Kazuto Ioka who we mentioned earlier. Then there’s Kenshiro Teraji who already cemented a claim for Fight of the Year in January when he beat Carlos Canizales in an instant classic of a fight.
That’s just the champions. Featherweight and below are littered with names like Reiya Abe, Ryosuke Nishida, and Kosei Tanaka. Not to mention Tenshin Nasukawa, who is now 3-0 after his insane kickboxing career that capped off with a win over Takeru in 2022.
Boxing is back, baby!
As I’ve talked about in the past, boxing is on a fantastic winning streak right now. The sport is exciting as it’s been in decades. Champions are unifying and going undisputed. Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue are currently sitting with four belts. Crawford and Inoue have done it in a weight class below them.
Oleksandr Usyk was undisputed at cruiserweight before moving up to heavyweight in 2018. Josh Taylor was undisputed in 2021. Jermall Charlo was undisputed at super welterweight before fighting Canelo Alvarez and being stripped. Devin Haney went undisputed at lightweight before moving up to super lightweight to do it again.
There’s Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk’s undisputed heavyweight fight and Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol on the horizon. Boxing is booming. Its the best that it’s been in ages. There are major fights all around. If there’s any time to jump in, now is the time.