I agree that was a knockdown because the ropes held inoue up.
Inoue vs Tsutsumi fight by fight thread
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After the tragedy last year I'm more than happy for Tsutsumi. With how much he gets hit I don't know how long he will last with the belt but his heart is real.
The ONLY bad thing from this...now Nakatani lost his likely opponent for unification in Vegas next year and more importantly the Naoya-Nakatani fight is back to the drawing boards. I don't think Tsutsumi is willing to do an unification with Nakatani for his next fight, Nishida also has zero interest and Takei is saved for Nasukawa.Comment
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Belts are only an add on for casuals. If Naoya and Junto want to fight next year, it's FOTY regardless of 8 belts, 4 belts or no belts.After the tragedy last year I'm more than happy for Tsutsumi. With how much he gets hit I don't know how long he will last with the belt but his heart is real.
The ONLY bad thing from this...now Nakatani lost his likely opponent for unification in Vegas next year and more importantly the Naoya-Nakatani fight is back to the drawing boards. I don't think Tsutsumi is willing to do an unification with Nakatani for his next fight, Nishida also has zero interest and Takei is saved for Nasukawa.Comment
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Even if it is for casuals, it just made the storyline so much more smoother and also would've likely made Nakatani the Ring champion as well just for extra gravy. Unfortunately I really don't see Tsutsumi/Nishida/Takei willing to do an unification with Nakatani next spring, and another overmatch voluntary isn't going to help raise Nakatani's stock any higher than it is right now. After what happened tonight, honestly I'm starting to feel that unless he lucks out in somehow getting an unification negotiated and agreed within the year, maybe it might be better for Nakatani to just go straight up to superbantam and attempt to become the WBO mandatory just for sakes.
Given that Nery was WBC, Goodman would count as IBF (even though he's also N1 at WBO too), and MJ is WBA, once the Goodman fight is likely finalized for December and Nakatani vacates and goes up, it might allow him to do an immediate WBO eliminator with someone in the top 5 of WBO minus Goodman (2. Carl Jammes Martin, 3. Dennis McCann, 4. Elijah Pierce, 5. Mukhammad Shekhov) and be ready to slide in at the top once Goodman gets defeated in December. Are any of those guys Top Rank? If so will make it easier to still try to get on the undercard of the Inoue-MJ Vegas(?) card hopefully still in play. It will also give Nakatani some time to get assimilated to the 122 body and not give a "Inoue had time to adapt to 122 but Nakatani didn't so it's unfair"-ish excuse.
Dec24- Inoue/Goodman, Nakatani vacates (if no unification can be set up next)
Apr25- Inoue/MJ, Nakatani/someone for the SB WBO mandatory eliminator
Aug/Sept25- Inoue/Nakatani
Dec25- Assuming Inoue wins, Naoya to 126 and Nakatani attempts to get the belts at 122 to become 4 division champion then attempt unificationComment
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