Japanese boxing sensations Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani will be fighting on the same card in December. This after the two unbeaten champions—Inoue at super bantamweight and Nakatani at bantamweight—signed on to co-headline a fight card in Saudi Arabia tentatively billed “The Ring V: Night of the Samurai.” The event is scheduled for December 27, 2025, at Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh.
Inoue and Nakatani: From Co-Headliners to Future Foes?
Inoue (31-0, 27 KOs) will be fighting WBC No. 1 contender Alan David Picasso (32-0-1, 17 KOs) for the undisputed super bantamweight crown. Picasso, like Inoue, is coming off a win, as he pulled out a majority decision victory over Japan’s Kyonosuke Kameda last July in the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Mario Barrios fight card. Inoue, meanwhile, battered Murodjon Akhmadaliev just this September en route to a unanimous decision win.
The fight with Picasso will be Inoue’s fourth this year. The Monster previously beat Ki Ye-Joon, Ramon Cardenas, and Akhmadaliev earlier in the year and is now looking to add Picasso to his list of vanquished foes. Inoue, incidentally, hasn’t fought four times in a calendar year since 2013, his second year as a professional.
Nakatani (31-0, 24 KOs), on the other hand, will stake his WBC and IBF bantamweight titles against Sebastian Hernandez at The Ring V: Night of the Samurai fight card in Riyadh. Nakatani is coming off a win as well, stopping Ryosuke Nishida in June after doing the same to David Cuellar Contreras in February.
The Japanese bantamweight has long been angling for a fight with Inoue, who is considered among the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world today alongside Oleksandr Usyk, Terence Crawford, and Canelo Alvarez. Should Nakatani and Inoue win their respective fights in December, a collision course between the two appears inevitable, granting the former his wish.
A Superfight in the Offing
While both Inoue and Nakatani can’t look past their opponents in December, the prospect of the two fighting in a superfight is, indeed, salivating. Both, after all, are in their prime and are the best in their respective divisions. Additionally, the weight difference—Inoue fights at 122, Nakatani competes at 118—isn’t too substantial and probably won’t be a factor.
So, should Inoue and Nakatani handle business at The Ring V: Night of the Samurai in Saudi Arabia, there’s probably no other fight to make than Inoue vs. Nakatani. In such case, expect it to be a massive event in Japan and draw record numbers.
