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Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani are on a collision course, but their converging roads take parallel detours. Inoue and Nakatani will compete in separate bouts at “The Ring V: Night of the Samurai” on Dec. 27.
Inoue defends his undisputed super bantamweight championship against David Picasso at Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The co-main event features Nakatani’s super bantamweight debut against Sebastian Hernandez Reyes. Ring Magazine announced the six-fight card, which DAZN streams globally, on Thursday.
Inoue (31-0, 27 KOs) is booked for his fourth fight of the year after dominating Murodjon Akhmadaliev on Sunday. Picasso (32-0-1, 17 KOs) is the WBC’s No. 1 contender coming off a majority decision win over Kyonosuke Kameda on the Manny Pacquiao-Mario Barrios undercard in July.
Nakatani (31-0, 24 KOs) vacated his unified bantamweight title to move up to 122 pounds. The three-division world champion has two wins this year, stopping Ryosuke Nishida and David Cuellar Contreras. He’s widely expected to fight Inoue if both men enter the new year undefeated. Nakatani’s road runs through fellow undefeated fighter in Reyes (20-0, 18 KOs), entering his third fight of 2025.
There’s also a third title fight on the card. IBF super flyweight champion Willibaldo Garcia Perez (23-6-2, 13 KOs) defends his title against unified flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji, seeking to become a three-weight world champion.
The other confirmed fights for “Night of the Samurai” are Taiga Imanaga vs. Armando Martinez, Reito Tsutsumi vs. Leobardo Quintana, and Hayato Tsutsumi vs. James Dickens.