Does Junto Nakatani beat Naoya Inoue?
A boxing film study!
As exciting as he is, Junto Nakatani is a very “meat and potatoes” boxer.
This is no disrespect to the Japanese superstar. He has his things that he likes to do and does them well.
Today we will look at how Junto Nakatani goes on the offensive, some mistakes he makes, and his killer instinct.
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Junto Nakatani: On the offensive
Long and lanky, like a praying mantis, Junto Nakatani is looking for primarily one thing: the straight right hand. A southpaw, he will use all of his tools to land his heaviest of blows, sometimes to his detriment.
Off the jump, Nakatani will begin to establish dominant hand position, smothering the lead weapon of his opponent.
We’ve talked about establishing dominant hand position as nauseam in Is Tenshin Nasukawa an elite boxer? and How Tyson Fury can defeat Oleksandr Usyk. Establishing dominance of the lead hand is used in open stance matchups and makes jabbing an opponent difficult. When something is in the way of your jab, an unobstructed path is hard to find.
But instead of leading with the jab, Junto Nakatani will instead leave with the left cross.
But Nakatani will use his leading with a cross to build and work into combination. As seen above, he will often follow behind with the uppercut and other strikes as his opponent sees the cross coming and look to close the distance after it misses.
In addition to setting up combinations by leading with the left, Nakatani also uses his footwork to find angles to land his power shots.
(1) Leading off with the jab, (2) Nakatani misses with his left cross. Not taking the outside angle, Nakatani is able to (3) pivot to his left which allows him (4) to escape at an angle. With an opponent that isn’t particularly disciplined at dealing with mobile footwork, Nakatani is able to use this to stay off the center line.
Getting into trouble
Junto Nakatani isn’t a perfect boxer by any means. The Japanese superstar tends to get hit and get put in bad positions as a southpaw. Against Cuellar, getting away with something like that is doable. If he were to have these lapses in judgement against someone like Naoya Inoue, the consequences would be dire.
(1) Starting the sequence, Cuellar establishes the outside foot position as the orthodox fighter. (2) He looks to double up on the foot positioning, taking a second two steps in. Nakatani tries to meet him with the jab from the inside foot position but doesn’t have the umph behind it. Knowing he’s beat to the weak side, (3) Nakatani is forced to circle out to the left side, pivoting right into the power hand of Cuellar. Nakatani essentially squares up Cuellar for him and (4) Cuellar lands a big left hook home.
This sequence is near identical to what Oleksandr Usyk put Tyson Furythrough in their first fight. The only difference being Usyk is the southpaw, chewing up space on Fury, the orthodox fighter. Oleksandr Usyk provides a much smoother example than Cuellar to which this writer seems prudent to bring up.
Like Cuellar, (1) Usyk begins to establish outside foot position by taking several skips towards Fury. (2) Usyk, now in position, throws a short left hook and Fury knows he’s beat. He turns into the power hand of Usyk, squaring Usyk up for him. (3) Fury tries, successfully, to keep Usyk off of him with a right hand. But the punch doesn’t have any power behind it because Fury pivoted forward and doesn’t have his power base below him.
In the aforementioned Tenshin Nasukawa article, we talked about jabbing from the inside angle. With Cuellar able to establish outside foot position on Junto Nakatani, knowing how to deter these advances is something the Japanese fighter can use to his advantage.
From the inside foot position, jabbing is a fantastic weapon. Nakatani attempted to intercept Cuellar with the jab, but to little effect. The issue lies in the reaction of Nakatani to losing the foot battle. He needs to better identify when someone is stepping to the outside and meet them with a stiff, thudding jab. Being so long for the division, this weapon could deter anyone from stepping in to exchange and leave the fight to a range that he is comfortable with.
Finding the finish
When Junto Nakatani smells blood, the killer instinct kicks in. Against Cuellar, the finish was set up with the angles, the left cross, and the jab.
(1) Leading with a left uppercut, Nakatani catches Cuellar clean and he follows behind with (2) a jab. (3) Nakatani then begins to angle off and reestablishes position by throwing a (4) jab and (5) a left cross. This hurts Cuellar. (6) Backed against the ropes, Nakatani comes in with a huge 1 and puts Cuellar down with (7) his favorite punch, a left cross.
Then, of course, once Junto Nakatani smells the blood in the water, he goes for the kill. David Cuellar didn’t stand a chance.
Looking forward, Junto Nakatani has some fantastic weapons that he uses very well. But his lack of discipline in certain areas will get him into trouble against more disciplined opponents. A super fight with Naoya Inoue could be a disaster. Inoue has fought three southpaws in his last four fights. If Nakatani doesn’t make a leap in the right direction, it could end in disaster and a marquee win for “The Monster.”