- The conveyor belt of
boxing talent in Japan has produced another superstar for tomorrow. - Meet
Junto Nakatani , a 22-year-old baby-faced assassin who mercilessly destroyed Giemel Magramo in a flyweight championship fight at the storied Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on Friday. - Nakatani advanced his undefeated pro boxing record to 21 wins (16 knockouts) and then put the 112-pound division on notice by saying he wants unification bouts against fellow titleholders.
- Insider has two Japanese boxers ranked in our list of the top-15 fighters in the world today, and it may not be long before a youngster like Nakatani edges himself closer to those wildly-decorated champions.
A baby-faced assassin from Japan could be the next big thing in boxing's lighter weight classes after he smashed a ranked contender to smithereens.
22-year-old Junto Nakatani is already the WBO world flyweight champion with an undefeated pro record of 21 wins (16 knockouts0, and on November 6 he laid down a marker.
His knockout win at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo was noteworthy as it was struck against Giemel Magramo — a fighter who had never been stopped in his pro career and was ranked within the top five at 112-pounds.
Nakatani showed an expert appreciation of range and dictated the pace throughout a bout in which he lasered a variety of punches onto Magramo's liver, ribs, and skull.
His ability to rarely be seen off-balance while creating angles to pepper his opponent with pin-point punches is a skillset that could see him continue to impress against tough opposition.
Nakatani finished the Filipino in the eighth round with a sequence of left hands, after also knocking him down in the seventh.
Magramo's recovery will no doubt be long and painful as he wakes up this week with headaches before clutching his body and cursing Nakatini. But the youngster will care little, as he looks at what is next for him.
"I landed some good punches in the first round," Nakatani said according to The Mainichi, which is one of Japan's major newspapers.
"Magramo is a good fighter but I had a good approach. He is really tough, but I was able to establish a good distance from him and in that sense I felt I boxed well."
Nakatani said on the night that, now he's a champion in the flyweight division, he will actively seek out other titleholders for major challenges at 112-pounds.
"I have to look toward other objectives, and one of those is to win a title unification fight," he said.
Boxing website Bad Left Hook was so blown away by Nakatani's performance that it opened its fight report by remarking: "Japan could have a real star on its hands."
It later highlighted the fighter's movement, the timing of his punches, and a mean streak which could see him become one of his country's most prominent boxers.
Nakatani hails from the land of the rising boxer
Japan has long been regarded as a conveyor belt of top tier talent in the lighter weight classes.
Only a few fights carry international broadcast partners, though, which means boxing fans in territories like the US and UK rely on social media accounts, trusted websites, and YouTube clips for intel on who's hot and who's not.
Regardless of the low visibility of Japan's fighters in the west, the country still produces athletes who challenge the division's best.
Two Japanese fighters already populate Insider's list of the top-15 boxers in the world today.
Our world No.15 boxer, Kosei Tanaka, is a three-weight world boxing champion at 25, and AsianBoxing.info recently announced that the fighter will move into the super flyweight division to challenge for a title in a fourth weight class when he takes on Kazuto Ioka, the WBO's champion at 118-pounds.
The fight will take place inside Tokyo's Ota-City General Gymnasium on December 31 — the most celebrated date on the Japanese combat
Insider also has Naoya Inoue ranked as our No.2 — second only to Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.
Inoue is a World Boxing Super Series champion in the bantamweight division, has an obscene amount of technical skill to compliment his punching power, and recently demolished Jason Maloney in only his second fight in America.
Inoue this year signed with the Las Vegas-based Top Rank promoter, one of the most powerful boxing companies on the planet, and his visibility will now likely increase substantially.
With Tanaka, another top-tier talent Kenshiro Teraji, and rising star Nakatani, Inoue may well be joined inside the world's top-10 fighters by one of his countrymen in the near future.
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