{"id":562873,"date":"2026-05-02T19:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/562873\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T19:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:17:09","slug":"inoue-vs-nakatani-naoya-inoue-beats-junto-nakatani-in-tokyo-to-remain-undisputed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/562873\/","title":{"rendered":"Inoue vs Nakatani: Naoya Inoue beats Junto Nakatani in Tokyo to remain undisputed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After conquering the bantamweight division, Inoue moved up to super-bantamweight in July 2023 and became the undisputed champion later that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has made seven successful defences of that status but has fast run out of serious challengers, leading to speculation that another divisional change could be on the cards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moving up to featherweight is an option, but the division lacks household names and a jump to super-featherweight is likely a step too far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dropping back down to the lower divisions appears to be the most likely route for Inoue, and preliminary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ringmagazine.com\/news\/naoya-inoue-vs-bam-rodriguez-in-preliminary-talks-says-hearn-5CLIJJT1pD6iVqXztYDSZL\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">talks are under way, external<\/a> for a fight with pound-for-pound star Jesse &#8216;Bam&#8217; Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">American Rodriguez, 26, makes his bantamweight debut when he fights for the WBA title against Antonio Vargas on 13 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rodriguez has reigned as unified champion at flyweight and super-flyweight, and boasts an undefeated 23-fight record &#8211; 16 inside the distance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Inoue, who has fought five times in the past 15 months, said: &#8220;I have been so busy and had so many intensive days, so please give me a rest.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After conquering the bantamweight division, Inoue moved up to super-bantamweight in July 2023 and became the undisputed champion&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-562873","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\/562873","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=562873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}