JUNTO NAKATANI added to his reputation as one of boxing’s pound-for-pound best by crushing Petch Sor Chitpattana inside six rounds.
The three-weight world champion dominated the early stages against his opponent, who had never been stopped, before going through the gears in search of his third straight stoppage win.
Chitpattana was dropped for the first time in his career midway through the sixth and appeared to have recovered well. But, with just a second left of the round, a hard left hand put the visitor over for the second time and referee Laurence Cole waved it off without a count.
WBC bantamweight champion Nakatani is now 29-0 with 22 KOs, and as a result of this victory, all three of his bouts at 118lbs have ended inside the distance.
Chitpattana’s last visit to Japan was back in December 2018, when he was outpointed by Takuma Inoue in their Tokyo clash for the WBC interim bantamweight title. It was the only defeat of his 77-fight career to date.
But he has boxed and won 28 times in the six years since, earning himself this shot at Nakatani’s full title.
This was the second defence of the belt Nakatani won via sixth-round knockout of Alexandro Santiago in February. He needed just 147 seconds to see off Vincent Astrolabio in July but it was not such an early night this time around.
He was, however, hurting the challenger regularly in the early rounds and seemed to have little respect for whatever was coming back.
And Nakatani made the breakthrough halfway through the sixth round, when Chitpattana succumbed to a relentless combination, which had started with a left hook.
He was up in time to beat the count but Nakatani was all over him again. The Thai visitor did well to fire back under pressure and seemed to be in position to make it until the end of the round.
But then Nakatani, one of boxing’s most lethal finishers, found the finish when he uncorked another crunching left hand which sent Chitpattana down to the canvas face first. Cole waved it off straight away, with an official time of 2:59 recorded.