Comments Thread For: TV Picks, Tokyo Edition: Takuma Inoue, Junto Nakatani headline seven title fights in two days

[BoxingUpdates]

Two huge Tokyo doubleheaders will take place Sunday and Monday morning (U.S. and U.K. times), before the usual weekly TV picks article, so let's give these cards - featuring seven title fights - a special edition.
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[Corelone]

Japan gives me jet lag at home. Nap in between. Tape it I want to see Nakatani, Taraji etc. and invasive species Alascagua and Gonzalez. Small men, but a lot of them

[drablj]

He will face Rosales for the WBC belt left vacant when Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez moved up to 115.

wrong. wbc belt was held by julio cesar martinez who failed a ped test again. this time he couldn't keep the belt.

Olascuaga then moved up to flyweight, dispatching former titleholder Giemel Magramo...

wrong. magramo was a title challenger only, not a titleholder. his only title fight was when he lost vs. nakatani, like mentioned in the same article.

although most of these title fights are bad, 7 in 2 days is fantastic. it should have been takuma - nakatani and akui - kenshiro (#1 at 108 vs. #1 at 112). that would be card of the year. tsutsumi should have fought nishida since he is the highest rated challenger for nishida's title anyway.

[daggum]

Japan's version of bum fights

[Elheath]

wrong. wbc belt was held by julio cesar martinez who failed a ped test again. this time he couldn't keep the belt.

wrong. magramo was a title challenger only, not a titleholder. his only title fight was when he lost vs. nakatani, like mentioned in the same article.

although most of these title fights are bad, 7 in 2 days is fantastic. it should have been takuma - nakatani and akui - kenshiro (#1 at 108 vs. #1 at 112). that would be card of the year. tsutsumi should have fought nishida since he is the highest rated challenger for nishida's title anyway.

You mean Kenshiro.

People tend to forget because it isn't a mandatory defense by definition, but out of all the fights on this card Takuma-Tsutsumi was the absolute biggest requirement to happen due to Tsutsumi winning Ohashi's tournament last year (a promised world title fight in 2024). Not to mention given the whole tragedy with regards to Anaguchi's death, this was absolutely guaranteed to happen regardless of Nakatani.

Nakatani is doing a stay busy fight because his last mandatory defense against Astrolabio ended in a 1R KO. He was available unscathed and didn't want to have such a long gap, plus it sets both his and Takuma's schedules evenly by putting them together. Although it is a stay busy by result, since Petch is the #1 ranked guy in WBC so it helps shake up the rankings at the least and he won't have to worry about his next mandatory for a while (though I doubt Nakatani is staying in 118 that much longer to have to face the next mandatory).

Nishida is the one that is on a complicated situation, because although he's Japanese he has a promotion deal with 3150/Kameda who is in really bad terms with Teiken/Honda (and Ohashi) due to stuff that happened while he was still active so it makes it hard to set up on Ohashi/Teiken's main card. There is also a solid source saying Nishida is also has a homecoming celebration voluntary defense as the main event being set up for December so he wasn't likely to fight in Tokyo this weekend. He's also been very vocal about wanting to have the Nasukawa Tenshin money fight, so unlikely he'll be in the unification story until the end. By the ERod-Salas fight on November is actually a mandatory eliminator for him so there is a good possibility he may fight the winner sometime next year.

Akui-Kenshiro is probably a matter of time, but since there was a vacant belt available Teiken decided that it was going to be more worth it to do an unification between beltholders in the future. It also helps that regardless of Olascuaga or Gonzalez winning, they both have some history with Kenshiro to set up a nice unification story.

Assuming they all win, I'm near positive that next year Nakatani-Takuma and some 112 combination of Akui/Kenshiro/Olascuaga(or Gonzalez) will have an unification(s), as they are all regular members of the Teiken Amazon Prime cards and Ohashi was more than willing to set up a Nakatani clash for Takuma. In fact both fighters mentioned in the presser yesterday that Takuma would like to fight Nakatani if he wins, and Nakatani would like to fight the winner of Takuma/Tsutsumi which was Nakatani being polite to his fellow countryman but will likely be Takuma.

[drablj]

You mean Kenshiro.

People tend to forget because it isn't a mandatory defense by definition, but out of all the fights on this card Takuma-Tsutsumi was the absolute biggest requirement to happen due to Tsutsumi winning Ohashi's tournament last year (a promised world title fight in 2024). Not to mention given the whole tragedy with regards to Anaguchi's death, this was absolutely guaranteed to happen regardless of Nakatani.

Nakatani is doing a stay busy fight because his last mandatory defense against Astrolabio ended in a 1R KO. He was available unscathed and didn't want to have such a long gap, plus it sets both his and Takuma's schedules evenly by putting them together. Although it is a stay busy by result, since Petch is the #1 ranked guy in WBC so it helps shake up the rankings at the least and he won't have to worry about his next mandatory for a while (though I doubt Nakatani is staying in 118 that much longer to have to face the next mandatory).

Nishida is the one that is on a complicated situation, because although he's Japanese he has a promotion deal with 3150/Kameda who is in really bad terms with Teiken/Honda (and Ohashi) due to stuff that happened while he was still active so it makes it hard to set up on Ohashi/Teiken's main card. There is also a solid source saying Nishida is also has a homecoming celebration voluntary defense as the main event being set up for December so he wasn't likely to fight in Tokyo this weekend. He's also been very vocal about wanting to have the Nasukawa Tenshin money fight, so unlikely he'll be in the unification story until the end. By the ERod-Salas fight on November is actually a mandatory eliminator for him so there is a good possibility he may fight the winner sometime next year.

Akui-Kenshiro is probably a matter of time, but since there was a vacant belt available Teiken decided that it was going to be more worth it to do an unification between beltholders in the future. It also helps that regardless of Olascuaga or Gonzalez winning, they both have some history with Kenshiro to set up a nice unification story.

Assuming they all win, I'm near positive that next year Nakatani-Takuma and some 112 combination of Akui/Kenshiro/Olascuaga(or Gonzalez) will have an unification(s), as they are all regular members of the Teiken Amazon Prime cards and Ohashi was more than willing to set up a Nakatani clash for Takuma. In fact both fighters mentioned in the presser yesterday that Takuma would like to fight Nakatani if he wins, and Nakatani would like to fight the winner of Takuma/Tsutsumi which was Nakatani being polite to his fellow countryman but will likely be Takuma.

nope. i mean nakatani.

i knew everything you wrote and i stand by everything i wrote.

tsutsumi would get his promised title shot. it could be ibf or nakatani could (and probably would) immediately vacate a belt after unification with takuma. tsutsumi's title fight would then be in december at the latest. waiting for 2 more months is nothing.

kenshiro is already old. he has no more time. his best bet to become #1 at 112 is NOW. that's why i'm disappointed he's not fighting akui.

[Elheath]

nope. i mean nakatani.

i knew everything you wrote and i stand by everything i wrote.

tsutsumi would get his promised title shot. it could be ibf or nakatani could (and probably would) immediately vacate a belt after unification with takuma. tsutsumi's title fight would then be in december at the latest. waiting for 2 more months is nothing.

kenshiro is already old. he has no more time. his best bet to become #1 at 112 is NOW. that's why i'm disappointed he's not fighting akui.

Oh wait, you meant Magramo's loss to Nakatani. NVM then I saw Olascuaga in the beginning of the sentence and misread your post thinking you were talking about Olascuaga's first title fight which he lost to Kenshiro.

Although Japanese promotions are more likely to do cross-promotional fights, 3150/Kameda is a special case mainly due to all the issues their family had with JBC and Teiken and all that long ongoing stuff so Honda really, REALLY dislikes anything Kameda related. Hence, the IBF title shot against Nishida wasn't going to be possible a Teiken Honda/Ohashi related card because Nishida wasn't going to show up on their card until his promotional contract with 3150/Kameda is over (which actually should be ending soon, thankfully), which is why him, along with the Shigeoka brothers been totally unseen on the Teiken/Ohashi Amazon Prime cards. Only way for Tsutsumi to have gotten a voluntary title fight with Nishida was to get off the Ohashi/Teiken cards and get on the 3150 cards which was realistically not happening, or had to become the next mandatory for IBF which the eliminator is occurring between ERod and Salas next month. Also even if Tsutsumi goes through all the trouble now to get a fight this year, it is not a sure thing that Nishida would even choose to fight Tsutsumi for his first voluntary. Nishida and his team has made it very vocal and obvious that he's uninterested in unifications with Nakatani/Takuma, and wants to play safe opponents until the 3150 agreement is finished and they can jump over for the big money Tenshin Nasukawa fight later next year.

Takei was never a choice to begin with because of the storyline they are building up for Nasukawa, and as for going for the belt Nakatani eventually vacates, even if Nakatani/Takuma did an unification tomorrow then Nakatani immediately vacated, there is no guarantee that a fight for the vacant belt can be negotiated with the opponent and happen where/how Ohashi wants it. If it is with Takuma, he has full control, and frankly it is an opponent that is good but the type that Takuma is more than likely to win.

Kenshiro is old, but not old to the point where he would win a match against Akui tomorrow but will lose if it is 5 month later. If anything getting the vacant belt now is his best and probably the final chance to attempting to go undisputed given that Akui/Olascuaga are much easier to set up an unification as early as spring of next year, leaving Ayala as the only non-Teiken associated beltholder instead of having to work with two non-Teiken beltholders after having Rosales and someone else fight for the vacant belt while Teraji and Akui fought for one belt. I'm not saying I don't want to see them fight, if anything I'm more confident in the chance of the two clashing in the near future before Kenshiro is retirement age by going for the vacant belt first.

Either way, I'm quite optimistic to getting all of Naoya-Nakatani, Nakatani-Takuma, Teraji/Akui unifications in 2025 so I'm not complaining.

[Mr. David]

wrong. wbc belt was held by julio cesar martinez who failed a ped test again. this time he couldn't keep the belt.



wrong. magramo was a title challenger only, not a titleholder. his only title fight was when he lost vs. nakatani, like mentioned in the same article.

although most of these title fights are bad, 7 in 2 days is fantastic. it should have been takuma - nakatani and akui - kenshiro (#1 at 108 vs. #1 at 112). that would be card of the year. tsutsumi should have fought nishida since he is the highest rated challenger for nishida's title anyway.

Thank you. A pair of dumb, uncharacteristic factual errors on my part — especially given that I had BoxRec up in front of me as I wrote. I've made the corrections and added notes within the article to reflect that the text has changed.