WBC bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani (29-0, 22 KOs) made easy work of No. 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 twice in the sixth round with vicious combinations to get the knockout. The time of the Stoppage was at 2:59 of the sixth round.
Nakatani was hit hard 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 the win, Junto looked average at times and had come from Chitpattani with a lot of big punches. If this guy had more power, we might have seen a showdown. It didn’t seem right that Nakatani was getting hit so often by this fighter.
Nakatani can stay at bantamweight long enough to try to become undisputed champion by beating these three champions:
– Seiya Tsutsumi: WBA
– Ryosuke Nishida: IBF
– Yoshiki Takei: WBO
It is now pointless for Nakatani to fight Naoya Inoue’s younger brother, Takuma Inoue, as he was beaten soundly by Seiya Tsutsumi by a 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night, losing his WBA 118-lb belt in Tokyo.
Unless there is a sense of urgency for Nakatani to fight Naoya Inoue next, he should stay at bantamweight long enough to try and pick up the remaining three belts. It will make the fight with Naoya much bigger if Nakatani can first establish himself before moving up in weight to 122.
Inoue, 31, is getting older, and there is pressure on him to move up to featherweight to expand his pool of talented fighters. The super bantamweight is completely dead, empty of talent, and they call fighters other than Inoue.
That could be one of the reasons why Naoya chose to park there to avoid the dangerous predators that await him at 126 when he eventually moves.
