by Tomi Pradarics
Highly rated super featherweight contender Jeremiah Nakathila is far from being impressed by the most recent ring performance of fellow top ranked Lamont Roach Jr.
The unbeaten Roach Jr faced arguably his toughest test to date in former WBA World title challenger Jonathan Oquendo on the undercard of the robust matchup between Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs during the Cinco de Mayo weekend in Las Vegas. The 23-year-old Maryland-native used his footwork and finesse to outbox the more experienced Puerto Rican fighter and walked away with a hard-fought unanimous decision by scores of 96-93 and 97-92 twice.
With the win, Roach (19-0-1, 7 KOs) added the WBO NABO belt to his already held WBO International strap and he is currently staying at No. 1 on the April ratings of the WBO at 130 pounds.
Next on the ranks is the Namibian Nakathila, who also unified regional belts by the WBO recently when he beat down and stopped Zoltan Kovacs in a card promoted by MTC Sunshine Promotions in Windhoek, Namibia. The powerful Nakathila (18-1, 14 KOs) dropped his Hungarian foe multiple times and punctuated an end to the contest in the eighth frame. The Namibian is now the WBO Global and Africa belt holder and ranks right behind Roach at No. 2 with the Puerto Rico-based sanctioning organization.
The reigning world champion at super featherweight is Japanese Masayuki Ito (25-1-1, 13 KOs) who is next facing Jamel Herring in a voluntary defense on May 25th in Kissimmee, Florida. Following this upcoming bout, the WBO will discuss Ito’s next mandatory challenger and that fighter will more than likely come out of the two above mentioned and highest rated contenders.
“I am a much better fighter than Roach Jr. I am stronger than him, faster than him and definitely more skilful than him,” said a confident Nakathila in a recent press release.
“I do not think Roach is ready to take on a guy like Ito because he will be destroyed. If you want to give boxing fans the most entertaining fight, then it should be Nakathila vs Ito.”
Nestor Tobias, promoter of the Namibian contender shares his fighter’s opinion and is hoping for a decision by the WBO that serves his protegee the best way possible.
“It was definitely a boring fight and I was not impressed with Roach Jr. I think he still has a long way to go before he can challenge a world champion.
Nakathila himself will walk over Roach Jr and he is ready to take on Ito and dethrone him,” discussed Tobias.
It will be interesting to see who the WBO will declare the mandatory challenger between Nakathila and Roach Jr.
The latter is an unbeaten contender who belongs to one of the largest promotional companies in the world in Golden Boy Promotions. Nakathila, however, won his first title with the WBO two years prior his unbeaten compatriot, and has defended that belt six times so far compared to Roach’s two defense of his own title.
Good news to the fans that there is almost impossible to create a bad pairing out of Ito, Roach and Nakathila as they are all fine practitioners of their respected fighting styles.
You can reach Tomi Pradarics at pradaricst@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TomiPradarics.
