Fight between superstar Naoya Inoue and maturing Junto Nakatani ‘makes sense’ for 2025

Watching Junto Nakatani lift his record to 29-0 with a 22nd knockout to close a two-day festival of title fights in Tokyo last week left Top Rank President Todd DuBoef feeling quite confident over a matter certain to thrill the boxing public.

“I thought (Nakatani) looked terrific. He is maturing impressively,” DuBoef told BoxingScene of the three-division champion who finished Tasana Salapat in six rounds while defending his WBC bantamweight belt Monday.

“If he and (Naoya) Inoue happens, it makes a lot of sense. I could see it happening in 2025.”

Just imagine: Four-division champion Inoue 28-0 (25 KOs) defending his undisputed junior-featherweight title versus a driven countryman who increasingly is swinging a wrecking ball through his division.

Before it happens, there’s formalities to be tended to.

Inoue is headed to a likely Christmas Eve meeting against his IBF mandatory challenger, Australia’s Sam Goodman. The IBF earlier this week announced a purse bid open to outside promoters is scheduled October 29 for the bout as Inoue and Goodman’s promoters have thus far failed to strike a deal.

And Nakatani, who trains in Southern California with cornerman Rudy Hernandez, would likely also opt to take an interim fight before such an immense showdown.

Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum previously told BoxingScene after watching Inoue – nicknamed “The Monster” – stop challenger TJ Doheny by seventh-round body blow in September that he envisioned an Inoue-Nakatani showdown in the U.S. in the late spring.

A company official said at that time that Arum’s hope was premature.

But now that DuBoef has watched Nakatani flex his ability, the dream showdown is appearing increasingly likely.

DuBoef said he told trainer Hernandez that Nakatani “is starting to look like” Hernandez’s late brother, the former super-featherweight champion Genaro Hernandez, “except (Nakatani) can punch.”

Rudy Hernandez grinned at the comment, DuBoef said.

DuBoef said he was impressed at how Nakatani performs in his 5-feet-8 frame with a 68 ½-inch reach.

“He’s so lanky … lanky with those long arms, throwing these punches that come from nowhere,” DuBoef said.

Match that against the destructive power of pound-for-pound elite Inoue and the mind races as to how this national battle would play out.