Naoya Inoue remains the undisputed super-bantamweight world champion after outlasting Japanese rival Junto Nakatani in a Tokyo super fight on Saturday.
Inoue started and finished strongly in front of a 55,000 sold-out crowd in one of the most hotly anticipated showdowns of the year at the Tokyo Dome and arguably the biggest bout in the history of boxing in Japan.
Nakatani rallied fiercely after a slow opening to a tense and cagey affair that heated up in the latter stages, but saw his spirited comeback efforts derailed by a nasty cut above his right eye caused by an accidental clash of heads in round 10 that poured with blood and led to a swift reversal in momentum at a crucial time.
The slick Inoue took full advantage and claimed a unanimous decision win as the three judges at ringside returned scorecards that read 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112 in his favour.
‘The Monster’ continued his hold on the 122-pound division as a result, retaining the WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring titles for the seventh time.
It is another remarkable chapter in an illustrious career for Inoue, a modern great and permanent fixture behind consensus No1 Oleksandr Usyk on most pound-for-pound lists, a four-weight world champion who has reigned as undisputed in two different divisions.
He remains undefeated having moved to 33-0 (27 KOs) with a 29th consecutive victory in world title fights.
It remains to be seen what is next for generational talent Inoue, with suggestions that he could now go on to meet another pound-for-pound top-10 fighter in Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez in a second mega fight, with the latter looking to become a three-weight world champion when he moves up to bantamweight to challenge for Antonio Vargas’ WBA title in Arizona next month.
As for Nakatani, himself a three-weight world champion who was previously the unified bantamweight titlist, a first professional loss in only his second outing at super-bantamweight drops him to 32-1 (24 KOs).
On Saturday’s undercard, former kickboxing legend Yoshiki Takei made an unconvincing debut at super-bantamweight as he responded to losing his WBO bantamweight belt to Christian Medina in a maiden defeat last year by beating China’s DeKang Wang by majority decision.
Naoya’s younger brother Takuma Inoue, meanwhile, successfully defended his WBC bantamweight title for the first time with a dominant 12-round display against veteran Kazuto Ioka, who was emphatically denied the chance to become Japan’s first-ever five-weight world champion and join the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Terence Crawford - who was at ringside on Saturday alongside Turki Alalshikh - in the history books.
Jin Sasaki picked up the OPBF welterweight title with a thrilling split-decision win over Sora Tanaka, while Toshiki Shimomachi outpointed Reiya Abe in another all-Japanese affair and Yuito Moriwaki won the OPBF and WBO Asia Pacific super-middleweight titles via a split-decision victory against South Korea’s Deok No Yun.
The night opened with a draw between Kosuke Tomioka and Shogo Tanaka, with the former retaining the WBO Asia Pacific flyweight title.
