WBC bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani (29-0, 22 KOs) made easy work of #1 contender Petch Sor Chitpattana (76-2, 53 KOs), knocking him out in the sixth round on Monday night at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
The 26-year-old southpaw Nakatani dropped Chitpattana two times in the sixth round with vicious combinations to get the knockout. The time of the Stoppage was at 2:59 of round six.
Nakatani was hit a lot in the fight, showing a vulnerability that could come back to haunt him when he moves up in weight to challenge undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue at some point.
In victory, Junto looked average at times and was getting by Chitpattani with a lot of big punches. If this guy had more power, we might have seen an upset. It didn’t look good that Nakatani was getting hit so frequently by this fighter.
Nakatani may stay at bantamweight long enough to try and become undisputed champion by beating these three champions:
– Seiya Tsutsumi: WBA
– Ryosuke Nishida: IBF
– Yoshiki Takei: WBO
It’s now pointless for Nakatani to fight Naoya Inoue’s younger brother, Takuma Inoue, as he was soundly beaten by Seiya Tsutsumi by a 12-round unanimous decision last Saturday night, losing his WBA 118-lb belt in Tokyo.
Unless there’s a sense of urgency for Nakatani to fight Naoya Inoue next, he should stay at bantamweight long enough to try and collect the three remaining belts. It’ll make the fight with Naoya a lot bigger if Nakatani can first establish himself before moving up in weight to 122.
Inoue, 31, is getting older, and there’s pressure on him to make the move to featherweight to expand his pool of talented fighters. The super bantamweight is totally dead, empty of talent, and name fighters other than Inoue.
That could be one of the reasons why Naoya has chosen to park himself there to avoid the dangerous predators that are waiting for him at 126 when he eventually moves up.
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