December 30th 2016-Ariake Colosseum, Tokyo, Japan
Koki Inoue (5-0, 4) vs Futoshi Usami (14-2-1, 11)

Yesterday fight fans in Tokyo saw Koki Inoue [浩樹井上], the cousin of Naoya Inoue, take on Japanese ranked foe Futoshi Usami [宇佐美 太志] in a big step up.

At the end of October fans in Osaka were lucky enough to see the world ranked Masayoshi Nakatani successfully defend his OPBF Lightweight title against the heavy handed Futoshi Usami.

Nakatani, a hard puncher himself, showed off all the traits that we feel could take him to a world title. He showed great patience, fantastic poise, an excellent jab, and although the bout was very slow at times he showed a brilliant understanding of distance and timing. It was as controlled a performance as you are likely to see from a Lightweight hopeful with less than 10 professional bouts. As for Usami it's unlikely he'll ever win an OPBF title but we'd like to see him mixing at the Japanese title level as he could certainly be in interesting contests there.

(It's taken a few weeks for us to get this one but we're so glad we've finally gotten it and we have to send a massive thank you to Yossy112311 for the footage)

Later this month we will see the unheralded Japanese fighter Futoshi Usami attempt to claim the OPBF Lightweight title. Unfortunately footage of Usami is scarce and the only fight we have had to judge him on was this one, his bout with Tetsuya Muraki from back in 2011.

Going into this bout Usami was 6-0 and viewed as a promising and heavy handed prospect. Muraki was 6-7 and had been stopped 5 times previous with only 1 stoppage in his favour. We suspect that is part of the reason that Usami fought the way he did at times, showing no special to Muraki whilst trying to launch huge bombs. On the other hand he did often look very good with a sharp jab that he started to forget at times. When he uses his jab Muraki does look like the talented prospect he was touted to be, when it goes away though he looks like a guy who may well struggle against anyone who can take his power.