It’s rare in boxing to know that, whatever happens in the ring, a bout will qualify as an “I was there” moment. Naoya Inoue’s showdown with Junto Nakatani for the undisputed super bantamweight championship is most definitely that.
The added beauty of Inoue vs. Nakatani, which will take place before a sold-out 55,000 crowd at the Tokyo Dome, is that it’s incredibly hard to see the spectacle disappointing.
Pound-for-pound superstar Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs) puts all the belts at 122 pounds on the line for a seventh time, having cleaned out the division with banner wins over Stephen Fulton and Marlon Tapales in 2023.
Ever since then, there has been a steadily growing clamour for Nakatani (32-0, 24 KOs) to step up and challenge his great compatriot. This mounted as ‘Big Bang’ won five out of five championship fights at bantamweight via knockout. His first outing at super bantamweight, on the undercard of Inoue’s routine victory over Alan Picasso, against Sebastian Hernandez became perilously tough going before Nakatani was awarded a narrow points win.
But he emerged to make this event – the promotional tagline for Inoue vs. Nakatani is simply ‘The Day’ – a reality. It’s the 33-year-old four-weight champion versus a 28-year-old seeking to become a four-weight champion. The king versus the most accomplished pretender to his throne yet, and from within his own kingdom.
We’ll all remember where we were as two modern greats put it all on the line to burnish their place in history.
MORE: Naoya Inoue’s five greatest knockouts
Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani full card results
- Naoya Inoue (c) vs. Junto Nakatani for the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring super bantamweight titles
- Takuma Inoue (c) vs. Kazuto Ioka for the WBC bantamweight title
- Kosuke Tomioka vs. Shogo Tanaka; Flyweights
- Toshiki Shimomachi vs. Reiya Abe; Featherweights
- Yoshiki Takei vs. Dekang Wang; Super Bantamweights
- Sora Tanaka vs. Jin Sasaki; Welterweights
- Deok No Yun vs. Yuito Moriwaki; Super Middleweights
Where to watch Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani
Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani will be available on DAZN worldwide.
A DAZN monthly subscription is $19.99 on a 12-month contract or $29.99 month-to-month. The annual subscription is $224.99.
Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani start time
- Date: Saturday, May 2
- Start time: 4 a.m. ET | 1 a.m. PT | 9 a.m. BST
- Main event start time (approx.): 8 a.m. ET | 5 a.m. PT | 1 p.m. BST
- Location: Tokyo Dome – Tokyo, Japan
Naoya Inoue vs. Junto Nakatani is on May 2. The main card starts at 4 a.m. ET and the main event should begin around 8 a.m. ET, depending on how long the undercard fights last.
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