Ramon Cardenas enjoyed the next best thing to a showdown with a once-targeted opponent.
The former title challenger put in work with Junto Nakatani, joining the three-division champ at coach Rudy Hernandez’s famed L.A. Boxing Gym in Los Angeles, California. Both boxers were engaged as they prepare for separate fights in December.
San Antonio’s Cardenas, 26-2 (14 KOs), returns to the ring versus Mexico’s Erik Robles, 16-3 (10 KOs), atop a ProBox TV card from War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on December 19.
(Note: BoxingScene and ProBox TV are both owned by Garry Jonas.)
Eight days later Japan’s Nakatani, 31-0 (24 KOs) and a former titlist at 112lbs and 115lbs and unified bantamweight champion, is set to face Mexico’s Sebastian Hernandez, 20-0 (18 KOs). Their clash in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 27 will mark the 122lbs debut for Nakatani. A win by the 27-year-old southpaw from Sagamihara is expected to lead to a super fight with his countryman, the undisputed junior-featherweight champion Naoya Inoue, 31-0 (27 KOs) and who tops the bill against David Picasso.
Wednesday’s gym session made perfect sense in that context. Cardenas is coming off a valiant effort in an eighth-round stoppage defeat by Inoue in May in Las Vegas, Nevada.
That fight was pegged by most experts as a showcase opportunity for Inoue, who made his first US appearance in nearly four years. Cardenas nearly ruined the party when he floored the four-division champion in the second round of their ESPN headliner. Inoue recovered and powered through a scrappy Cardenas to score a knockdown late in the seventh before stopping him early in the eighth of their instant classic.
“December 19, chapter two,” Cardenas commented of his upcoming ring return versus Robles.
The 30-year-old Texan’s name was attached to rumors as the opponent of choice for Nakatani’s first fight as a junior featherweight. It never evolved beyond whispers; the unbeaten Hernandez was instead selected to face the fast-rising pound-for-pound entrant.
Nakatani will fight in the Middle East for the first time, in addition to making his debut at his new weight. He fights primarily in Japan but has two wins in the US and regularly trains out of Hernandez’s gym in the Little Tokyo section of downtown LA.
Cardenas has fought in or around the 122lbs division for most of his career. There was a brief period in which he flirted with campaigning at bantamweight but returned one division north, and in a big way, when he knocked out the unbeaten Rafael Pedroza in the second round of their ShoBox headliner in September 2023. That bout turned out to be the series finale for the long-running program.
Cardenas immediately resurfaced on the ProBox circuit, where he will fight for the fourth time in his past five ring appearances. The lone exception was the challenge of Inoue.
