With Major League Baseball’s spring training and regular season about to get underway, Los Angeles Dodgers fans are gearing up for another run at a title. Last year, newly acquired Japanese superstars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto contributed to a 2024 World Series win. This year, the Dodgers acquired another Japanese hot shot in pitcher Roki Sasaki in a quest to secure back-to-back championships.

Another L.A.-based champ from Japan, bantamweight belt holder Junto Nakatani, is set to defend his own title Monday. The 27-year-old Nakatani, 29-0, (22 KOs), will make his third defense of the title against David Cuellar, of Queretaro, Mexico, at the Ariake Arena in Japan.

Training just two miles south of Dodger Stadium, in Little Tokyo – an historic Japanese American district in the downtown Los Angeles area – Nakatani was in the closing phases of his camp with longtime coach Rudy Hernandez when BoxingScene visited them in the brand-new, state-of-the-art LA Boxing Gym.

The connection between fighter and trainer could be observed as far back as February 2014, when Nakatani was a teenager and Hernandez was already a seasoned coach who had already worked with multiple world titleholders, including his brother Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez. At the time, Nakatani was the only international competitor at an amateur show, winning an intense, fast-paced bout that stood out from the others. Hernandez, though slow to be won over by any young fighter, saw something in Nakatani.

“We met when Junto was 15 years old, and I didn’t think much of anything,” Hernandez said. “I look at kids these days, and we don’t know how they may be ‘til they are 18. He is a hard worker; he does things differently. Junto doesn’t think he’s special and is always learning or wanting to learn.”

Over the years, they have refined Nakatani’s style, approach and demeanor. A flyweight title – via eighth-round knockout over Giemel Magramo in November 2020 – followed. Four fights later, in May 2023, Nakatani sparked Andrew Moloney in the 12th round to take a vacant junior bantamweight belt. He became a three-division champ with a sixth-round stoppage of Alejandro Santiago last February.

“We have come up together to the world champion level,” Nakatani said of Hernandez. “I have learned with him throughout the years. The best advice I have received from Rudy is to respect my opponents, and the biggest impact I experienced from him was when I knocked out Andrew Moloney. I was so excited, and he told me to calm down.”

Nakatani begins 2025 against Cuellar, 28-0, (18 KOs), who is coming off a unanimous decision over Jose Velasquez. His goal is to unify the titles at bantamweight by eventually dethroning fellow Japanese belt holders Seiya Tsutsumi, Yoshiki Takei and Ryosuke Nishida.

“I’m not underestimating him,” Nakatani said of Cuellar, “because this is his big opportunity, and I have to be on my best.”

The grand prize, of course, would be an all-Japanese showdown with junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue, a pound-for-pound star and the current king of Japanese boxing.

“I would like the opportunity to fight him in the future, beat him and be No. 1 in Japan,” Nakatani said.

Inoue, 29-0 (26 KOs), will first make his return against Mexico’s undefeated Alan David Picasso in May in Las Vegas. And there is still the little matter of Nakatani getting past Cuellar on Monday.

“I understand there are still some barriers and obstacles that I need to surpass before that fight gets made,” Nakatani said, “but that would be the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history.”