{"id":623096,"date":"2026-04-22T07:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623096\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:52:09","slug":"robert-garcia-believes-junto-nakatani-is-naoya-inoues-hardest-puncher-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623096\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Garcia Believes Junto Nakatani is Naoya Inoue’s Hardest Puncher Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019\u00a0Rodrigiez\u2019s\u00a0trainer Robert Garcia has rated Junto Nakatani as most dangerous puncher Naoya Inoue will have fought when the pair meet on May 2.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs) and Nakatani (32-0, 24 KOs) collide at the historic Tokyo Dome in the most highly\u00a0anticipated\u00a0Japanese boxing match of all time. Pound-4-pound superstar, Inoue, will make the seventh straight defense of his undisputed super bantamweight championship, while Nakatani makes his second appearance at 122 pounds following an inconsistent debut at the weight limit. Nakatani defeated Sebastian Hernandez by\u00a0unanimous decision\u00a0last December in Riyadh on an undercard topped by Inoue outpointing David Picasso.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a challenge against Nakatani,\u201d Garcia said\u00a0on\u00a0the Spit Bucket Podcast.<\/a> \u201cPeople might be counting him\u00a0out\u00a0but Nakatani is\u00a0a very dangerous\u00a0fighter. His style is one of those tough, strong fighters that has tremendous power.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garcia would have had his eye on the Inoue and the weight class for some time, with Rodriguez having long been linked to a mega-fight with the undisputed champion<\/a>. The WBA,\u00a0WBC\u00a0and WBO super flyweight champion\u00a0moves\u00a0toward Inoue and Nakatani when he moves up to bantamweight to challenge Antonio Vargas for the WBA bantamweight\u00a0title\u00a0on June 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Nakatani is going to put up a great fight, he\u00a0has got great\u00a0power,\u00a0and Inoue has been dropped a couple of times,\u201d Garcia added. \u201cI\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0think that the fighters that Inoue has been dropped by are as good or have as much power as Nakatani has.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a solid guy, man, and he is going to put up a good fight. I still pick Inoue, yes, but it is\u00a0going to be a\u00a0really good\u00a0fight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019\u00a0Rodrigiez\u2019s\u00a0trainer Robert Garcia has rated Junto Nakatani as most dangerous puncher Naoya Inoue will have fought when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-623096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}