{"id":643599,"date":"2026-05-02T19:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643599\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T19:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:19:10","slug":"naoya-inoue-defeats-junto-nakatani-to-defend-his-undisputed-super-bantamweight-crown-in-tokyo-boxing-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643599\/","title":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue defeats Junto Nakatani to defend his undisputed super-bantamweight crown in Tokyo | Boxing News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naoya Inoue defeated Junto Nakatani to defend his undisputed super-bantamweight crown in one of the biggest fights in Japanese boxing history.<\/p>\n

After 12 brutal rounds, ‘The Monster’ Inoue retained his WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO belts as he beat compatriot Nakatani with scores of 116-112,116-112 and 115-113, in front of a sell-out crowd of 55,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome.<\/p>\n

Defeat ended the perfect 32-fight record of Nakatani as the three-division champion could not overcome the ferocious power and spiteful combinations from Inoue.<\/p>\n

\"Naoya<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Naoya Inoue celebrated a unanimous decision victory<\/p>\n

“He was a fighter with a strong heart. That’s what makes this win mean so much,” said Inoue, a four-division champion.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his first loss, Nakatani said: “I came prepared so there were no surprises, but the champion was great.”<\/p>\n

Inoue appeared to edge the early rounds with his precise punches and smooth footwork, but Nakatani responded well in the fifth, unloading a flurry of thudding punches.<\/p>\n

\"Naoya<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Junto Nakatani (right) suffered the first defeat of his professional career<\/p>\n

Hurtful right hands from Inoue stalled Nakatani’s attempts to rally in the seventh, but the skilful southpaw briefly stunned Inoue with an uppercut in the ninth.<\/p>\n

Nakatani suffered a cut over his right eye following a head clash in the following round, although the wound did not diminish his aggression.<\/p>\n

Into the closing rounds, both fighters traded power shots at close quarters until the final bell, but Inoue had done enough to reassert his dominance at super-bantamweight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naoya Inoue defeated Junto Nakatani to defend his undisputed super-bantamweight crown in one of the biggest fights in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-643599","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\/643599","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=643599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}