Naoya Inoue retained his undisputed super-bantamweight championship with a 12-round unanimous-decision victory over Junto Nakatani on Monday night at the Tokyo Dome, in front of a sold-out crowd of approximately 55,000 spectators. The official judges' scores were 116-112 (twice) and 115-113, with The Guardian scoring the bout 115-113 in favour of Inoue.
Inoue, now 33-0, turned back a determined rally from Nakatani in the middle rounds to secure the win. Speaking through an interpreter after the fight, Inoue said: 'Thank you, everyone! I would like to show some appreciation for Junto Nakatani for fighting me tonight. A year ago at the world ceremony, I called out Junto to fight me one day and a year later it happened. I wanted to show you guys that I would be the winner, and I did everything to get the win.'
The victory marked Inoue's seventh consecutive successful defence of his four belts (WBC, WBO, WBA and IBF) at super-bantamweight. Asked about his future, Inoue indicated he would take a rest, noting this was his fifth fight in the last 15 months.
The undercard featured a successful title defence by Inoue's younger brother, Takuma Inoue, who retained his WBC bantamweight title with a unanimous decision over Kazuto Ioka. Ioka, 37, was knocked down twice early but recovered, though the outcome was never in doubt. The official scores were 118-108, 119-107 and 120-106.
Earlier, Yoshiki Takei won an eight-round majority decision over DeKang Wang in a junior featherweight bout. The main event was slightly delayed, with the ringwalks featuring dramatic pyrotechnics and music, including Inoue's entrance to Tomoyasu Hotei's 'Battle Without Honor or Humanity'.
