{"id":27504,"date":"2024-02-24T17:12:57","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T14:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/27504\/junto-nakatani-tkos-alexandro-santiago\/"},"modified":"2024-02-24T17:12:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T14:12:59","slug":"junto-nakatani-tkos-alexandro-santiago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=27504","title":{"rendered":"Junto Nakatani TKOs Alexandro Santiago for WBC bantamweight title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Junto Nakatani TKOs Alexandro Santiago for WBC bantamweight title\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><\/div>\n<p>Mike Coppinger, ESPN<span class=\"timestamp \">February 24, 2024, 12:08 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Junto Nakatani scored a sixth-round TKO victory over Alexandro Santiago on Saturday in Tokyo to become the WBC bantamweight champion, his third division title.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese Nakatani (27-0, 20 KO) beat Santiago with a left right in the sixth round.  Moments later, a flawless right hook sent the Mexican back to the canvas as Santiago&#39;s corner quickly stopped the one-sided action at 1 minute and 12 seconds.  .<\/p>\n<p>Nakatani, 26, won every round on all three scorecards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t wait for everyone to watch me fight at bantamweight from now on,\u201d said Nakatani, who trains in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>He entered the fight ranked No. 4 at 115 pounds by ESPN;  this was Nakatani&#39;s first fight at 118 pounds.  And even in another weight class, Nakatani still possessed considerable advantages in size and reach.<\/p>\n<p>At 5-foot-8 with a reach of 67 inches, Nakatani was capable of boxing from the outside, using his active southpaw jab to control the action.  He peppered Santiago with clean left hands from a distance and hit the champion around both eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Santiago (28-4-5, 14 KO) entered the ring coming off his career-best performance, a unanimous decision <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/win\/\"   title=\"win\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">win<\/a> over future Hall of Famer Nonito Donaire in July.  This victory allowed Santiago to win his first world title and 4th place in the ESPN bantamweight rankings.<\/p>\n<p>But against Nakatani, Santiago was not up to the task.  Every time the 28-year-old Mexican tried to get close, Nakatani met him with jabs and uppercuts that countered the champion&#39;s attack.  Santiago, at 5 feet 3 inches, gave up five inches in height.<\/p>\n<p>He had won four fights since a majority decision loss in November 2021 to Gary Antonio Russell.<\/p>\n<p>Nakatani is one of the most dynamic boxers in the sport.  His 12th round knockout victory over Andrew Moloney in May was named ESPN&#39;s KO of the Year.  The victory gave Nakatani the WBO title at 115 pounds, a belt he successfully defended in September via decision over Argi Cortes.<\/p>\n<p>Nakatani also won a title at 112 pounds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Takuma Inoue retains his title<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Takuma Inoue, the younger brother of Japanese star Naoya Inoue, retained his WBA bantamweight title with a ninth-round knockout victory over Jerwin Ancajas in the main event.<\/p>\n<p>Inoue (19-1, 5 KOs) delivered a right uppercut to the body of Ancajas who dropped the challenger for the count for 10 at 44 seconds of Round 9.<\/p>\n<p>Inoue, 28, was defending for the first time the 118-pound title he won in April with a decision victory over Liborio Solis.  Inoue is ESPN&#39;s No. 2 bantamweight.  His brother, Naoya Inoue, is ESPN&#39;s No. 2 pound-for-pound boxer and undisputed junior featherweight champion.<\/p>\n<p>Ancajas (34-4-2, 23 KO) is a former 115-pound champion who has now lost three of his last four fights.  The other two losses came against Fernando Martinez in junior bantamweight title fights in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old Filipino entered the fight ranked No. 8 by ESPN at bantamweight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Junto Nakatani TKOs Alexandro Santiago for WBC bantamweight title\u060c Mike Coppinger, ESPNFebruary 24, 2024, 12:08 p.m. Junto Nakatani scored a sixth-round TKO victory over Alexandro Santiago on Saturday in Tokyo to become the WBC bantamweight champion, his third division title. The Japanese Nakatani (27-0, 20 KO) beat Santiago with a left right in the sixth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11157,11159,11154,11155,11158,1201,11156,5620],"class_list":["post-27504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-alexandro","tag-bantamweight","tag-junto","tag-nakatani","tag-santiago","tag-title","tag-tkos","tag-wbc"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27506,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504\/revisions\/27506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}