{"id":519998,"date":"2026-03-07T08:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519998\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T08:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T08:27:15","slug":"inoue-nakatani-title-showdown-set-for-may-2-at-tokyo-dome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519998\/","title":{"rendered":"Inoue-Nakatani title showdown set for May 2 at Tokyo Dome"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Andreas HaleMar 6, 2026, 10:26 AM ET<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Andreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and pro wrestling. In Andreas’ free time, he plays video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He is also a host for Sirius XM’s Fight Nation. Before joining ESPN, Andreas was a senior writer at DAZN and Sporting News. He started his career as a music journalist for outlets including HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z’s Life+Times. He is also an NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated short film “Bridges” in 2024.<\/p>\n

Multiple Authors<\/p>\n

Boxing’s worst-kept secret has now been confirmed as Naoya Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs) and Junto Nakatani (32-0, 24 KOs) will meet on May 2 at Tokyo Dome for Inoue’s undisputed junior featherweight championship.<\/p>\n

The All-Japan showdown was formally announced at a news conference in Japan. The fight will air live on Lemino pay-per-view; U.S. distribution rights have yet to be announced.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n

2 Related<\/p>\n

Inoue — ESPN’s No. 2 pound-for-pound boxer — is coming off an impressive 2025 in which he competed four times with wins over Kim Ye-Joon, Ramon Cardenas, Murodjon Akhmadaliev and David Picasso. Inoue’s unanimous decision win over Picasso in December<\/a> also saw Nakatani in the co-main event squeezing by Sebastian Hernandez in a tougher-than-expected fight. Their wins secured the highly anticipated clash between Japan’s two best fighters.<\/p>\n

Nakatani is ranked No. 6 on ESPN’s pound-for-pound rankings and will look to become a four-division champion after holding world titles at bantamweight, junior bantamweight and flyweight. Although he narrowly won his junior featherweight debut in a grueling showdown with Hernandez, Nakatani has proved to be one of the best fighters in the world and had a strong showing in 2025 by going 3-0.<\/p>\n

The undercard will feature Inoue’s younger brother, Takuma, defending his WBC bantamweight title against former four-division titleholder Kazuto Ioka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andreas HaleMar 6, 2026, 10:26 AM ET CloseAndreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-519998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}