Nakatani, a rising star in the golden age of Japanese boxing, is determined to knock out Inoue

The bout between champion boxers Naoya Inoue (30-0-0, 27 KOs) and Junto Nakatani (31-0-0, 24 KOs) is already being billed as Japan’s “fight of the century.” And the date hasn’t even been set. Inoue gave his fans a fright by getting knocked down in the second round but came back to soundly stop the fight in the eighth. Boxing fever was hot with the packed crowd of 10,000 at the Ariake Coliseum for the WBC and IBF bantamweight unification title match between Nakatani and Ryosuke Nishida last month.