WBO #14 Lightweight Masayoshi Nakatani (19-1, 13 KOs) scored a spectacular ninth round knockout win over IBF #5, WBO #12 Felix Verdejo (27-2, 17 KOs) within the MGM Grand boxing night Las Vegas.
Verdejo sent Nakatani to the floor with right hand in the first and fourth rounds. Nakatani was able to turn the tide of the fight in the seventh when he visibly hurt Verdejo. After that, Nakatani dominated the fight and sent Verdejo twice to the floor in the ninth round and achieved stoppae at 1:45.
It was Nakatani's first fight since losing by unanimous decision to Teofimo Lopez in July 2019.
“I fought with Lopez, and I want to fight him again, and so I continue to fight,” Nakatani said after the fight. "I want to knock him out like Verdejo today, something like that. Today I couldn’t land from a distance, so I had to move closer and hit him from below”.
