RIVALS COLLIDE ON A BLOCKBUSTER WEEKEND OF BOXING
In terms of three huge domestic fights in three corners of the world, boxing really does not get much bigger and better than it does this weekend.
Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani putting their undefeated records on the line for the undisputed super-bantamweight championship in Tokyo, then the ‘Wolf of Wolverhampton’, Conah Walker, up against Smethwick’s Sam Eggington in a cracking domestic tear-up in Wolves, finished off by Mexico’s very own Zurdo Ramirez defending his WBO & WBA World Cruiserweight Titles against the American-born Mexican David Benavidez in Las Vegas — boxing at its very brutal best.
First off, we’ll head east to Japan where the 32-0 Japanese fighting machines Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani go toe-to-toe in the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani - Undisputed Super-Bantamweight Championship
A fight which has been in the works for quite literally years, reigning undisputed super-bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue takes on three-weight world champion and fellow Japanese superstar Junto Nakatani in what is, without doubt, the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.
The much more well-known of the two, Inoue has taken the boxing world by storm in the past decade.
He won his first world title in just his sixth fight when claiming the WBC World Light-Flyweight Title against Adrian Hernandez before going on to win world titles at super-flyweight and then undisputed championships at bantamweight and super-bantamweight. Incredibly, the fight this weekend against Nakatani will be Inoue’s 28th consecutive world title fight.
He comes into this fight off the back of two back-to-back points decision victories over David Picasso and Murodjon Akhmadaliev, the first time he’s recorded two straight points decision victories.
His last stoppage came just over a year ago to the day when stopping Ramon Cardenas and he’ll be hoping to return to his knockout ways on Saturday night.
Nakatani, meanwhile, has been on an interesting journey of his own.
Since turning professional just over 11 years ago to the day, he took a little longer than Inoue to get himself into the world title mix, with his first world title victory coming in his 21st fight.
It’s been all systems go since then for the Sagamihara native, with world title victories at flyweight, super-flyweight and then bantamweight.
He made relatively light work of Sebastian Reyes on his super-bantamweight debut in his last fight in December and he’ll be hoping to go 2/2 at 122lbs against one of the greatest boxers of this generation.
To the fight now, and it’s a really tricky one to call.
The power undoubtedly lies with Inoue. He’s secured 27 stoppage wins compared to Nakatani’s 24 in their 32 fights as professionals and he is much more established up at super-bantam, having fought at the weight on eight occasions.
Despite this though, Nakatani is three inches taller and has a one-inch reach advantage so, aesthetically, the physical advantages undoubtedly lie with the challenger.
Also, Nakatani has boxed 40 fewer rounds than Inoue. This is mainly down to the fact that Inoue has been in 12-rounders for the majority of his career, whereas Nakatani didn’t fight in his first 12-rounder until his first world title fight in his 21st bout and didn’t go the 12-round distance until his 26th fight against Argi Cortes. To add to this, he is five years Inoue’s junior, so all of that combined may affect how this fight goes.
What is so good about this match-up is that both of them can do it all. They can both box and they both carry devastating knockout power in both hands.
The outcome of this fight may well come down to who deals with the pressure better. The bookies have Inoue as a relatively big favourite, which is understandable considering the level of opposition he has fought is considerably better than the level of opposition that Nakatani has fought.
There are already whispers that if Inoue does win, he will be fighting Bam Rodriguez in easily one of the biggest fights globally of the year, so he knows he can’t afford to slip up here.
Nakatani will want to rip up that script and earn himself a big payday against Bam but, if he is going to do that, he needs to be patient.
Inoue has hit the deck twice in his career, firstly against Luis Nery and secondly against Ramon Cardenas. However, he climbed off the canvas to win both fights by stoppage.
The challenger most definitely has the power to hurt Inoue but, if he does, he can’t afford to get too carried away like Nery and Cardenas did and he can’t afford to let Inoue recover and get back into his rhythm, so it’s a bit of a catch-22.
Inoue will be his usual self. He’ll look to land heavy early and get into his rhythm around round two. If Nakatani is going to have any chance of winning this fight, he can’t afford to let him do that because, if he does, it might be a fairly quick night at the office for the reigning champ.
One thing is for sure, these two are going to give it their all in what could well turn out to be one of the best fights of the year.
Conah Walker vs Sam Eggington
Talking of best fights of the year, there is quite literally no way possible that this fight won’t be a contender for Fight of the Year for 2026.
Conah ‘The Wolf’ Walker up against the experienced and always entertaining Sam Eggington in a cracking Midlands derby.
Very much now becoming the bogeyman, Walker burst onto the scene when upsetting Cyrus Pattinson in front of the DAZN cameras back in 2023.
He lost out to the now IBF World Welterweight champion Lewis Crocker in a fight that could have really gone either way in June 2024 before returning to winning ways against Lewis Ritson five months later.
Since then, he’s been on a three-fight knockout streak with Harry Scarff, Liam Taylor and, most recently, Olympic silver medallist Pat McCormack falling victim to the relentless pressure of the wolf from Wolverhampton.
With British and Commonwealth titles in his trophy room, he’s gradually building up a reputation for being one of, if not the most entertaining boxers from the British Isles right now with his relentless pressure and granite chin and, on Saturday night, he very much meets his match in the shape of Sam Eggington.
A British boxing stalwart over the past decade, Eggington has fought pretty much all of the big names on the domestic scene.
After turning professional with simply money on his mind and no real aspirations of winning any titles, he won nine of his first 10 fights in the paid ranks and has gone on to become British, European and Commonwealth champion at 147lbs.
Having fought the likes of Liam Smith, Bradley Skeete, Frankie Gavin, Paulie Malignaggi and Ted Cheeseman, now at the age of 32, he finds himself in another cracking domestic dust-up in a proper local derby.
If you’re a boxing purist and want to see exquisite skill and boxing technique, this fight probably isn’t going to be for you.
Yes, both men are technically pretty good but they are two men who just love a good old-fashioned tear-up.
Walker has been a little more active with two fights in the past 12 months, whereas Eggington hasn’t fought in just over a year.
This is the longest period of inactivity in Eggington’s career and getting back in the ring with a fighter like Walker could well be a recipe for disaster.
If Eggington has ring rust, which he will inevitably have, expect Walker to make the most of that and try to get him out of there early.
Both know they have the gas tank to take this long so, realistically, the earlier this fight ends the better for both men as, the longer it goes, the more it becomes a war of attrition.
No one has ever really put a dent in Walker, despite his three losses, and if Eggington is going to win this fight, he’s going to need to do just that.
Whether he will or not, only time will tell.
For Walker, the plan is simple. Start fast, don’t let Eggington find any sort of rhythm and break that body down as quickly as you can. Then, the longer the fight goes, look to mix it up more to the head and body.
It’s quite literally a Fight of the Year contender guaranteed so get your popcorn out and just sit back and enjoy two warriors of British boxing slugging it out for the bragging rights of the Midlands.
On the undercard, one of the future stars of women’s boxing fights for the sixth time as a professional as Tiah Mai Ayton faces off with the experienced Stevi Levy in one of the toughest tests of her career so far.
Also on the undercard, Bilal Fawaz defends his British & Commonwealth Super-Welterweight Titles against Ryan Kelly with Junaid Bostan, Louie Ward and Shannon Ryan all returning to action.
David Benavidez vs Gilberto Ramirez - WBO & WBA World Cruiserweight Titles
The final stop on our world tour on Saturday sees us head across the Atlantic to Las Vegas where Gilberto Ramirez defends his WBA & WBO World Cruiserweight Titles against the undefeated two-weight world champ David Benavidez.
In a fight that very much came out of the blue, it sees two multi-weight world champions put it all on the line on Cinco de Mayo weekend.
A world champion down at super-middleweight, Zurdo Ramirez always looked far too big for 168lbs but, after stepping up to light-heavyweight, he suffered the first loss of his career in his first world title fight at the new weight against Dmitry Bivol.
Off the back of that defeat, he stepped up in weight once again and it’s proved to be a good move, with his record now standing at 4-0 at cruiserweight with two world titles to his name and notable wins over the likes of Yuniel Dorticos and Chris Billam-Smith.
Similar to Ramirez, Benavidez was a world champion at super-middleweight, however his tenure at light-heavy was far more successful.
Despite only fighting three times at the weight, he became world champion when outclassing Oleksandr Gvozdyk and then showing his class to outpoint David Morrell Jr.
In his last fight, he put in arguably the best performance of his career to stop England’s Anthony Yarde in emphatic fashion in Saudi Arabia so he goes into his fight with Ramirez with his unbeaten record still intact and plenty of momentum.
In terms of the fight, it’s an intriguing one to say the least.
Ramirez is obviously a lot more established at cruiser with this being Benavidez’s cruiserweight debut but we believe that might work against him.
He’ll have likely got used to the speed, power and footwork of the bigger men but, if he does the weight right, which we think he more than likely will do, Benavidez will bring his rapid speed, thudding power and elusive footwork that he showed at 168lbs and 175lbs with him.
At the moment, there’s no real blueprint to beat Benavidez. If someone with the technical ability of David Morrell Jr can’t outbox Benavidez then there’s not a fighter between 168lbs and 200lbs that will be able to do so and, if Anthony Yarde can’t cause Benavidez problems with his speed, then there’s no one between 168lbs and 200lbs that will cause him problems in that department.
Ramirez needs to do something which no fighter has done before and put a big dent in Benavidez. The move up in weight for the American may aid Ramirez’s chances but Benavidez is a big man.
Also, power isn’t something Ramirez is renowned for. His last stoppage victory came in 2022 and he is yet to stop anyone up at cruiser.
If Benavidez, like he usually does, can suss Ramirez out early and then start to walk him down, it’s going to be a very, very, very long night for the reigning champion.
It might not turn out to be the dogfight that Benavidez is anticipating, but we have him as a massive favourite going into this contest, as do the bookies, and they rarely get it wrong.
It will also be good for boxing if Benavidez wins. He hasn’t ruled out stepping down to light-heavy to face either Bivol or Beterbiev and then, obviously, at cruiser, he’s got a mega fight with Jai Opetaia to look at.
Could he go up to heavyweight? Possibly. It all depends on how he looks on Saturday night.
An enormous day and night of boxing so get that fridge filled and sit back and enjoy.