After choosing up a trio of knockouts in 2024, pound-for-pound stalwart Junto Nakatani will headline a February twenty fourth all-bantamweight tripleheader in Tokyo.
Nakatani (29-0, 22 KO) kicked off this 12 months’s marketing campaign by smashing Alexandro Santiago for the WBC title, then dispatched obligatory challenger Vincent Astrolabio in a single spherical earlier than taking out Petch Sor Chitpattana in October. A possible superfight with Naoya Inoue remains to be on the desk, however first he’ll need to get previous undefeated David Cuellar (28-0, 18 KO), a 23-year-old whose most noteworthy wins came to visit the badly light Moises Fuentes, Luis Concepcion, and most not too long ago Jose Velasquez.
Fellow titlist Seiya Tsutsumi (12-0-2, 8 KO), contemporary off an upset of Takuma Inoue for the WBA belt, battles Daigo Higa (21-3-1, 19 KO) in a rematch of their 2020 draw. Nonetheless not keen on fighters getting title photographs off of losses, however between their historical past, how exhausting Higa pushed Yoshiki Takei in September, and the truth that this has Combat of the Yr written throughout it, I’ll enable it.
Not clear why Nakatani and Tsutsumi aren’t simply unifying; hopefully that’s on the desk for summer season if each decide up wins.
Maybe probably the most fascinating bout is the opener, which pits bona fide celebrity Tenshin Nasukawa (5-0, 2 KO) in opposition to the all the time harmful Jason Moloney (27-3, 19 KO). Nasukawa, a former kickboxing ace, seems to have shaken off the rising pains and emerged as a real contender. Moloney, although lower than the sum of his components and coming off an upset loss to Takei, stays a troublesome out for many of the division.
