{"id":540347,"date":"2026-04-20T02:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540347\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T02:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T02:30:09","slug":"bam-rodriguez-rates-nakatanis-chances-of-becoming-the-first-man-to-beat-inoue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540347\/","title":{"rendered":"Bam Rodriguez rates Nakatani’s chances of becoming the first man to beat Inoue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez has offered a surprising take on Naoya Inoue<\/a> vs Junto Nakatani<\/a>, believing the result could be determined by a single punch.<\/p>\n

The pair will collide at the Tokyo Dome on May 2<\/a>, with pound-for-pound star Inoue making the seventh defence of his undisputed super-bantamweight crown.<\/p>\n

Since becoming a two-division undisputed king in 2023, stopping Marlon Tapales, \u2018The Monster\u2019 has retained his four major titles against the likes of Luis Nery and Ramon Cardenas.<\/p>\n

His most recent performance came in December, when the 33-year-old handily outpointed David Picasso and improved his record to 32-0 (27 KOs), which followed a comparably dominant points victory over Murodjon Akhmadaliev<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Featuring on the undercard of Inoue-Picasso, Nakatani was introduced to a far tougher night\u2019s work against Sebastian Hernandez, who many felt had done enough to edge their encounter.<\/p>\n

As it was, Nakatani won by unanimous decision in his first outing at 122lbs, while having previously become a three-division world champion.<\/p>\n

But while the 28-year-old brings considerable credibility and class to their all-Japanese showdown, many believe the experience and power of Inoue will ultimately prove decisive.<\/p>\n

As far as fellow pound-for-pound star Rodriguez is concerned, however, the two unbeaten punchers should be given an equal chance at orchestrating a favourable outcome.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Boxing News, the unified super-flyweight champion did not give a clear prediction, but nonetheless anticipates the result being determined by their early exchanges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a great fight. I feel like whoever lands the first big punch will become the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n

On paper, Nakatani arguably represents the toughest opponent thus far for Inoue, who has previously defeated the likes of Nonito Donaire and Stephen Fulton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jesse \u2018Bam\u2019 Rodriguez has offered a surprising take on Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani, believing the result could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-540347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}