Junto Nakatani Unifies Titles After Ryosuke Nishida’s Retirement
Junto Nakatani solidified his dominance in the bantamweight division after Ryosuke Nishida retired due to an eye injury before the start of the seventh round in their world title unification bout on Sunday. Nakatani added Nishida’s IBF title to his WBC belt, remaining number one in the division. The precision of his punches closed Nishida’s right eye, leading to an inspection by the ringside doctor and the decision to retire him after the sixth round at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, Japan.Naoya Inoue, who is linked to a big fight against Nakatani next year, watched from ringside as Nakatani took control in rounds five and six against his Japanese compatriot, in the fourth defense of his WBC title.
Nakatani (31-0, 24 KOs), 27, from Kanagawa, Japan, who is a three-division world champion, will now consider moving up to super bantamweight or seeking another bantamweight world title unification fight.The other world champions in the 118-pound division are Antonio Vargas (WBA) and Yoshiki Takei (WBO). There is talk of a mega-fight against Inoue for next year, so it is expected that Nakatani will have a fight in the meantime.
A fight against Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs) would be the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
Nakatani is ranked ninth in the pound-for-pound list, and this victory brings him closer to Inoue. Nishida (10-1, 2 KOs), 28, contributed to an absorbing fight that saw both maintain a furious pace for six rounds.
Nakatani, who is five feet and eight inches tall, and trains in Los Angeles with trainer Rudy Hernandez, has now won all five bantamweight fights by stoppage and started as if he wanted to finish early, with a total attack in the first round.Both men released their hands from the first bell, but Nakatani had the better part of the early exchanges, including a big left hook and a sequence of uppercuts in the second round.
Nishida improved in the third and fourth rounds by targeting the body, but his right eye began to swell in the fifth round and by the end of the sixth it was completely closed. Nakatani relentlessly targeted Nishida’s swollen eye with stinging left hands as he began to connect punches more regularly.
Defeat seemed inevitable for Nishida, considering he could only see through one eye and after an evaluation of the eye injury by the ring doctor, it was a sensible decision to pull him from the fight after the sixth round.
On the same card, Japanese bantamweight Riku Masuda (8-1, 8 KOs) connected a powerful left one-two that knocked out Michell Banquez, of Venezuela, in the first round.
