Unified bantamweight titleholder Junto Nakatani is in the running for 2025 Fighter of the Year, but the bigger prize might be a Naoya Inoue fight in 2026.
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Nakatani in 2025:
W vs David Cuellar Contreras KO 3
W vs Ryosuke Nishida RTD 6
Inoue in 2025:
W vs Ye-joon Kim KO 4
W vs Ramon Cardenas TKO 8
Nakatani has to take another fight if he wants a chance at fighter of the year because Inoue still has Akhmadaliev scheduled in September and then likely Ball in December. And if he wins both of those fights there's no way Nakatani could say he had a better year.
CPNUTKnockoutFreshMart
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japan really only have inoue and junto as their top dawg... they shouldnt even be fighting each other.. yet!... keep dominating the americans and latin. japan, please dont commit to another kamikaze mission.Comment
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I like the approach Rudy Hernandez takes, he trains Nakatani for a fight not for a specific opponent or style.Comment
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Inoue's December fight against Ball is currently no longer a guarantee when you consider Ball is fighting Goodman in August and there's no guarantee that he can fight again in December. Now before anyone says I'm delusional for thinking Goodman is gonna defeat Ball, the point I'm trying to make is that even if Ball wins given that Ball is not exactly an easy low damage fighter who wins relatively unscathed so there is a chance he gets an injury even if its a freak accident.Originally posted by famicommander View Post
Of course the same can be said for Inoue-MJ but either way right now I really won't be surprised if Ball vs Inoue doesn't happen this December but is pushed until later next year. Right now regarding Inoue barring a freak injury and of course a loss by either of them, I think the only thing close to confirmed is the September Inoue-MJ and next May Inoue-Nakatani. Inoue definitely puts more importance on the Nakatani fight than Ball right this moment so December might just not happen if it can't occur as he's not risking anything effecting 2026 May vs Nakatani.
Nakatani also said he wants to do two test matches at 122 which could also be September-December, so who he fights there will be very interesting. It likely won't be Cardenas but if its two guys in the high end of the ranked contenders for 122 there's a solid chance. So if Inoue ends up ending the year with Kim, Cardenas, and MJ and done (or just a stay busy if he does end up fighting in December but not Ball) while Nakatani gets four including two decently ranked contenders, he certainly can be above Inoue for the FotY rankings regardless of whether he wins it or not.
By the way I'm actually interested in the Japanese boxing FotY awards (which Inoue has essentially owned for the last how many years) which I'm actually somewhat interested in just to see if there is a change to the pattern this year.Comment
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You also gotta take in account, Rudy got a strong case for being trainer of the year.
Unorthodox and underrated.
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