Naoya Inoue's aura has cracked — and Junto Nakatani is built to test it
Inoue’s aura of invincibility has not vanished, but it has cracked. And cracks are invitations for a puncher like Nakatani.
The biggest all-Japanese fight in history is just around the corner. Naoya Inoue defends his undisputed super bantamweight titles against Junto Nakatani this Saturday — live on DAZN worldwide — inside the famous 55,000-capacity Tokyo Dome. The challenger, Nakatani, is aiming to join Inoue as a four-weight world champion.
Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs) and Nakatani (32-0, 24 KOs) have been on a collision course for a number of years. Both unbeaten men are bonafide superstars in their home nation of Japan, and at ages 33 and 28 respectively, have bulldozed their way into boxing’s pound-for-pound rankings. Inoue landed at No.
2 and Nakatani placed No. 6 in Uncrowned’s most recent rankings. Japan has a proud fighting history, but no fight has come close to eclipsing the scale of this weekend’s, appropriately titled “The Day.
” The unbeaten 122-pounders head to the Tokyo Dome in an attempt to surpass the buzz of the last major event to occur inside the Bunkyō-based stadium — Mike Tyson’s shocking loss to James “Buster” Douglas in 1990. Largely thanks to Inoue, boxing is booming again in Japan. Today, “The Monster” is the most recognizable active sportsman in the “Land of the Rising Sun” outside of the MLB’s Shohei Ohtani, and after sowing the seeds of indestructibility over 27 consecutive world title fights, is beginning to feel the weight of national pride on his shoulders — something deeply embedded in Japanese culture.
Continue to the original source for the full article.