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 twice 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 hard in the fight, showing a vulnerability that could set him back 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 got 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 being hit so often by this fighter.
Nakatani may be able to 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 by Seiya Tsutsumi via a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night and lost his WBA 118lb 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 to collect the three remaining belts. It will make the fight with Naoya much bigger if Nakatani can establish himself first before moving up in weight to 122.
Inoue, 31, is getting older, and there is pressure on him to make the move to featherweight to expand his pool of talented fighters. The super bantamweight is completely dead, void of talent, and mentions fighters other than Inoue.
This could be one of the reasons why Naoya chose to park himself there to avoid the dangerous predators that await him at 126 when he finally pulls up.
 made easy work of #1 contender Petch Sor Chitpattana (76-2, 53 KOs), knocking him out in the sixth){kind=link}