{"id":555457,"date":"2026-04-28T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/555457\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:05:08","slug":"teddy-atlas-sums-up-junto-nakatanis-chances-of-becoming-the-first-to-beat-naoya-inoue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/555457\/","title":{"rendered":"Teddy Atlas sums up Junto Nakatani&#8217;s chances of becoming the first to beat Naoya Inoue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Teddy Atlas has assessed Junto Nakatani\u2019s chances as he attempts to dethrone undisputed super-bantamweight king Naoya Inoue this Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The pair will square off at the Tokyo Dome, Japan, where Inoue overcame a shock knockdown to successfully defend his four world titles against Luis Nery in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, \u2018The Monster\u2019 has made five consecutive defences of his undisputed crown at 122lbs, including an <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/inoue-survives-cardenas-knockdown-wins-by-eighth-round-tko-in-las-vegas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">eighth-round finish over Ramon Cardenas<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<p>Again, Inoue was compelled to climb off the canvas and cement his stoppage victory, but did so with tremendous composure and intelligence.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c3w7gxpxwe1o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The 33-year-old then experienced far less resistance in his last outing against David Picasso<\/a>, comfortably outpointing the previously unbeaten Mexican in December.<\/p>\n<p>Nakatani, on the other hand, was introduced to a hard-fought encounter on the same card, resulting in a debatable unanimous decision victory over Sebastian Hernandez.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to that, \u2018Big Bang\u2019 had become a three-division world champion while never really needing to display such resolve.<\/p>\n<p>It could, therefore, either work to his advantage or detriment that the 28-year-old came through a torrid battle with Hernandez just over five months before facing Inoue.<\/p>\n<p>Assessing the situation on <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZbGQ5m9-wYA?si=V2Wtlf_E-I-M1soA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">his YouTube channel<\/a>, Atlas gives the challenger a genuine chance but questions whether even the best version of Nakatani can defeat Inoue, a consensus top two pound-for-pound star.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cListen, Inoue\u2019s a big [betting] favourite \u2026 I think Nakatani\u2019s a live dog. You have to like Inoue, it\u2019s hard to go against him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis fight will come down to geography. Who fights at the range, the distance, the location that better-suits them for their talent?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInoue wants to be close; Nakatani wants to be [fighting] at a distance. And he\u2019s a southpaw. He wants to make it hard for Inoue to make ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNakatani took a lot of punishment [against Hernandez]. Has he had enough time to recover? He went in that ring and came out of it with probably a little less of himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt 28, he\u2019s young enough to handle that \u2013 youth can do amazing things. I give Nakatani a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From a psychological perspective, Atlas believes that Nakatani has only benefited from his fight with Hernandez.<\/p>\n<p>Whether his body has been given sufficient time to recover, though, is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teddy Atlas has assessed Junto Nakatani\u2019s chances as he attempts to dethrone undisputed super-bantamweight king Naoya Inoue this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-555457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555457","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=555457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}