Right Then, They Are Doing It Again
Right then. On Sunday at Toyota Arena in Tokyo, Takuma Inoue defends his WBC bantamweight title against Tenshin Nasukawa for the second time. Prime Video have it, and if you are in Britain it is one of those get-up-early-and-be-glad-you-did mornings.
The first fight was last November. Inoue won a unanimous decision and, in doing so, ended a 53-fight winning streak that Nasukawa had carried across kickboxing and boxing. It was a genuinely significant result. It was also, I would argue, one of the least conclusive significant results of the year.
Why The First Fight Settled Nothing
Nasukawa had eight professional boxing fights to his name when he walked into a world title fight against a man with more than twenty. He started badly, worked it out as it went, and by the back half was having real success.
Inoue won because he is a more complete boxer who had been doing it for far longer, and because he was disciplined enough not to get drawn into the kind of fight where Nasukawa's ridiculous reflexes take over. That was the right way to win it and he deserved the decision.
But watch it back. Nasukawa was learning in real time, in a twelve-round world title fight, against a champion. The last four rounds of that fight look nothing like the first four. If you are the champion, that is the least comfortable possible way to win.
What Has Changed Since
They have each had one fight in between and both of them were against Hall of Fame-calibre opposition.
Inoue took out Kazuto Ioka. Nasukawa beat Juan Francisco Estrada in April in a WBC final eliminator, which is how he got back here, and which is a considerably better win than anything else on his record.
Beating Estrada is the thing that changes my reading of this fight. Estrada at this stage is not the Estrada of 2021, but he is still a gnarled, ring-smart, world-class operator who knows every trick there is, and Nasukawa did not just edge him — he was decisive about it. A fighter with eight professional fights does not usually do that.
Ten months ago Nasukawa was a phenomenon with a thin record. Now he is a phenomenon with a thin record and a proper scalp on it.
How It Plays Out
Inoue's fight is the same one he fought last time: long, disciplined, jab-led, refusing to be sucked into exchanges, banking rounds and never giving Nasukawa a stationary target to time.
The question is whether that works twice. Nasukawa spent twelve rounds learning exactly how Inoue does that, and the man who did the learning is the one with the more room to improve. Inoue is 22-2 and in his prime. Nasukawa is eight or nine fights in and still getting better every time out.
The counter-argument, and it is a strong one, is that world championship boxing at 118 lbs is brutally unforgiving of inexperience, and that the difference between eight fights and twenty-four is not something you can close with talent alone. Inoue has been twelve hard rounds more times than Nasukawa has been professional boxing rounds at all.
Luke's Verdict
Make no mistake, this is the best fight of the weekend anywhere in the world and it is not close.
My head says the champion again. Takuma Inoue by unanimous decision, narrower than last time, something like 115-113. The experience gap is real and Inoue is too disciplined to hand over the kind of fight Nasukawa needs.
My gut says Nasukawa stops him in the second half and we all spend Monday talking about the most remarkable eight-fight career in the sport. I am going with my head and I am not confident about it, which is exactly what a rematch should feel like.
Set an alarm for this one. If you know, you know.
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