Two Fascinating Tussles Gird Saturday’s Lomachenko-Haney Showdown

Two Fascinating Tussles Gird Saturday’s Lomachenko-Haney Showdown

For all that the big fights are the ones that anchor the sport, for me it is a good undercard that makes it breathe.

It is possible to spend the early hours of the morning here in the UK waiting for Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia to appear in the ring with only a series of mismatches and minor attractions for company. Not so this weekend when two genuinely attractive undercard matches will play out while we wait for Vasyl Lomachenko and Devin Haney to reach the squared circle.

First among these is the Andrew Moloney-Junto Nakatani match at 115lbs, a contest that infers bravery in the fighters who made it happen, a genuinely fascinating fight that will be sure to tug at the thinking of Sweet Science readers. Moloney’s twin brother Jason won himself a strap in a close, strange fight this past weekend against Vincent Astrolabio, an awkward puncher from the Philippines and a difficult assignment for anyone up at bantamweight. At superfly, Andrew (25-2), out of Australia, seems to have hunted down a similarly awkward opponent in the form of a tall, Japanese southpaw puncher with a 24-0 record, for his own pursuit of alphabet riches.

Nakatani has been a joy to behold as he’s moved into the 115lb top ten (currently ranked number nine to Moloney’s eight). Boxing out of a deep stance he forgoes what is generally a height advantage at five feet seven inches and instead positions himself for maximum return on his power-punches. That aggressive gamble has bought him a knockout in 75% of his fights, including a six-fight streak that stretched from 2022 back into the last decade.

Selecting a favourite from among these is difficult, but his stoppage of Filipino tough Giemel Magramo in 2020 was perhaps the most impressive. Magramo (now 28-3) has been beaten before and since, but never has he been stopped; Nakatani lashed him apart with long straights in eight rounds. Magramo crowded him until almost the last though and Nakatani, who is perhaps hampered a little by an absence of elite handspeed, used footwork to make room for himself and balance to take advantage of punching opportunities, hitting round the corner to the body and with uppercuts to Magramo’s dipping head. Not a technician in the most meaningful sense of the word, Nakatani is technically sure and can improvise.

He impressed, too, in what was his only fight outside Japan to this date, stopping Angel Costa, once a beltholder down at 108lbs, in four rounds at the Casino Del Sol, Tucson. After that victory in defence of the 112lbs strap he won against Magramo, Nakatani boxed once more at 112lbs then left for 115lbs, running into the first man to go the distance with him in years: teak tough Mexican Francisco Rodriguez Jr.  Amongst the most durable fighters on earth, Rodriguez provided for Nakatani something of a final engine check. The Japanese stood toe-to-toe with his opponent in the tenth and final round, all but outfighting the Mexican on the inside where Rodriguez was meant to dominate. He won every other round on my card.

There is absolutely no shame in failing to break a chin or will like that of Rodriguez, but it does bring us to the edge of Nakatani’s limitations. Rodriguez is not big at 115lbs and has a lot of wear on him and a fighter of Nakatani’s freshness and offensive capabilities may have been expected to make a dent – now we know where the outer limit lies.

What this means for Andrew Moloney is now the question to hand. Andrew is durable, without question, but has been dropped several times in his career, most notably against another tough Filipino, Richard Claveras. Claveras bothered Andrew with a volume of long uppercuts and improvised punches from that family and although Andrew won the fight clean, Nakatani is a different machine – but one who can improvise with the same sort of punch to fine effect. It was improvised straight left hands, too, that saw Andrew decked by Joshua Franco in their June 2020 contest. This was also something of a flash knockdown, but it cost Andrew a majority draw. These small vulnerabilities matter and it seems that sudden, runaway attacks might be the key to getting Andrew off his feet.

That single point difference on two scorecards earned him a rematch with Franco, resulting in 2020s most controversial result. The woeful Russell Mora decreed a phantom “accidental headbutt” early in the fight as the cause of swelling to Franco’s right eye when repeated viewings of the fight film reveal no such thing. What should have been ruled a technical knockout victory was instead rendered a No Contest despite the use of replays to aid in these decisions being in play in Nevada at the time. Andrew, rightly, was furious and the irony could not have been lost upon him when an instant replay in the third fight of this unexpected trilogy corrected a badly called knockdown in his favour. He dropped a unanimous decision.

Most notable for me in that fight was Andrew’s late collapse. While his brother Jason demonstrates elite conditioning in every fight, Andrew dropped five of the six rounds in the second half of the third Franco fight by my card and the last four rounds all went to Franco on the official scorecards. Essentially, Franco outwaited him with a compact, economic style while Andrew burned through energy moving and hitting. More recently in dominating Norbelto Jimenez, Andrew boxed in a compact, jab-heavy, aggressive style possibly designed to address these shortcomings, but such a style will also have risks against Nakatani. Likely though it is a better bet than trying to outfight the version of Nakatani that turned up in the ninth and tenth rounds of his fight with Rodriguez.

Still, I favour Nakatani. Andrew Moloney will be the best technician the Japanese has faced, but he did wreck Milan Melindo back in 2019; even a past-prime Melindo presents some of the technical challenges Moloney will muster. I look for Nakatani to take over late after a rough start and win a decision in a more violent re-run of the third Franco fight.

Of secondary interest is the rematch between the world’s number two at 130lbs, Mexican Oscar Valdez (30-1), and unranked American featherweight Adam Lopez (16-4).  Normally this is not a confrontation to whet the appetite but the circumstances surrounding the first fight fascinates. Originally scheduled to fight different opponents on the 2019 undercard for the Carlos Adames-Patrick Teixeira match, both seemed to have lost out on paydays when their respective fights fell through the day before the contest – boxing’s chaotic organisation for once paid off as the two were matched against one another instead and produced fireworks.

In a chance of a lifetime, Lopez found himself unexpectedly fighting in an alphabet eliminator and he came within seconds of winning. In the second, a technically loose Valdez put his head where it probably should not have been, and Lopez chased him with a right then lashed against his movement with a hook going the other way. Valdez was down and this was not a flash; he seemed tangled in his own limbs as he fought his way to his feet. Lopez went after his man but in a controlled fashion that I suspect he may now regret, and Valdez boxed his way steadily back into the contest over the following two rounds, before our friend Russell Mora stepped in for yet another inappropriate intervention in stopping the fight with seconds remaining in the seventh.

Lopez deserves his rematch and although Valdez will be a favourite almost as prohibitive as he was in their first fight, I will be glued to this one. Valdez hasn’t boxed a round since his April 2022 thrashing at the hands of Shakur Stevenson and hasn’t won a fight since September of 2021. If winning is a habit, Valdez is not in it, and while he has boxed with mixed fortunes, Valdez has contested eighteen rounds in that time.

These two fascinating tussles will precede the Haney-Lomachenko showdown on a night of boxing which is not to be missed.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE