Yahoo! Japan reports that with unified bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani vacating his titles ahead of his move to 122, top contenders Tenshin Nasukawa and Takuma Inoue are in talks to meet for the WBC belt this coming November.
Nasukawa (7-0, 2 KO), a generationally talented kickboxer let down by his sport’s lack of liquidity, cruised past Jason Moloney and Victor Santillan in his first two bouts of the year. Though a proposed showdown with WBO champ Yoshiki Takei failed to materialize, he’ll face
another highly skilled countryman in Inoue (20-2, 5 KO), who enjoyed a solid WBA title reign before losing his belt to Seiya Tsutsumi last October.
Neither of these guys can punch, but they’ve put on great fights in the past and could make for an entertaining clash of styles. I’ll admit that the timing is a bit odd; Inoue’s brother Naoya is tentatively set to meet Alan Picasso on December 27th, so it’s surprising that they’re not angling to share a card.
