One of boxing’s pound-for-pound best, Junto Nakatani (28-0, 21 KO), delivered one of his most dominant victories to date early Saturday (July 20, 2024) from Tokyo, Japan, as the WBC bantamweight champion defended his title with a blistering first-round TKO over Vincent Astrolabio.
Nakatani came into this fight as the P4P best bantamweight boxer on the planet and one of the best top 10 boxers in the sport tight now. He brought a 27-0 record and 20 career knockouts into the ring Saturday morning so there was good reason to expect a landslide performance from the young Japanese champion.
However, Astrolabio was coming into this fight with a 7-1 record over his last eight appearances and had only been finished once in his entire pro career. He’s proven to be a durable fighter and someone who can deliver fight-ending offense late into fights. It was up to Nakatani to shut down Astrolabio early and take over this main event
Luckily for the Japanese fans in attendance, that’s exactly what the undefeated champion did. It took Nakatani just over a two minutes to find his range, stalk down Astrolabio, and deliver a nasty punch to the body that stopped the Filipino boxer in his tracks. It was quite impressive even for the heavily-favorited Nakatani.
Check out the first-round finish below:
DONE IN ROUND 1??#NakataniAstrolabio | @BoxerJunto pic.twitter.com/6uQ891CHm2
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) July 20, 2024
It was just that easy #NakataniAstrolabio | @BoxerJunto pic.twitter.com/lU4pMbgf9O
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) July 20, 2024