In October 2020, Jason suffered a one-punch, seventh-round knockout against Inoue in a 118-pound title fight, and in May 2023, Andrew suffered a one-punch, 12th-round knockout against Nakatani in a 115-pound title fight.

The undisputed junior featherweight champion Inoue (32-0, 27 KOs) and Nakatani (32-0, 24 KOs) have continued crushing their respective counterparts ever since, and their destructive paths have led the Japanese juggernauts to a collision course against each other on May 2 at Tokyo Dome in Japan.

The Ring caught up with Jason and Andrew Moloney for a joint conversation ahead of the mega matchup to get their analysis on a fight featuring two of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

Naoya Inoue versus Junto Nakatani is the most intriguing fight in boxing, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's a fight that I've sort of hoped would happen for quite a while, and I respect both guys for putting this fight together at this stage of their careers.

It's going to be a sensational fight. I know firsthand what it's like to fight in front of 55,000 people at the Tokyo Dome, and it's incredible.

Even before I faced Inoue, I was a big fan of his for a long, long time. Myself and Andrew, we're real students of the game, but we're real fans of boxing, too. We both love watching Inoue fight. Inoue is such an exciting fighter to watch. He has such a great technique and style.

Obviously, when I stepped in the ring with him, I knew how good he was. But after being in the ring with him, it just reaffirmed my thoughts that this guy is really special. I see him as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world at the moment.

As good as Nakatani is, I don't think anyone can beat Inoue at the moment. I see Inoue winning the fight. But again, it's such an intriguing fight because of the two styles, because of the questions that Nakatani is going to ask. He's got such a unique, awkward, long style that can be hard to deal with.

How is Inoue going to break this guy down? How is he going to fight his fight? How is he going to overcome this tricky style? There are a lot of questions that'll be asked, and the million-dollar question is – how do you beat Naoya Inoue? He's just so well-rounded. He's so good at everything. He's so good at every distance.

But as we've seen from time to time, the dangerous and aggressive Inoue can be vulnerable, and that goes for any boxer in the world. Everyone is vulnerable at various stages.

We've seen Inoue get hurt and get dropped twice in his recent fights because he's so aggressive. He fights with such a warrior spirit; he's not just going out there to win on points and to play it safe. He goes out there to take guys out, which makes him very exciting, but again, also vulnerable.

Nakatani will have his chances; Inoue is hittable. Inoue has obviously shown that he’s able to be hurt. But at the same time, Inoue can put your lights out at any stage too. So that's what makes him such a great fighter to watch.

Nakatani has the chance of catching him and hurting him. But my money's on Inoue to win. It's the sort of fight you'll be on the edge of your seat because anything can happen.

From fighting Inoue, the foot speed was definitely something that was very tricky to handle. When you want to attack Inoue, he's not there.

He's very hard to get close enough to let your shots go. But then, he's just close enough that he can make you pay and counter you in an instant. So his foot speed and his hand speed are incredible.

I think that's what makes him the fighter he is. With Inoue being the big favorite, I think the betting people are looking at Nakatani's last fight and thinking that he wasn't so decisive. That was a close fight against Sebastian Hernandez.

But Inoue's style is completely different from Hernandez's. He's not that pressure fighter, volume puncher like Hernandez was, who gave Nakatani a little bit of trouble.

How are they going to handle each other's style? What is their game plan going to be? And how are they going to sort of enforce themselves on the fight and control it?

I think it's a 50-50. People see that fight against Hernandez and sort of write Junto off. But this is going to be a completely different fight. I think you've got to give Inoue some advantages in the fact that he's been at 122 for quite a while now. He's really built himself and filled into that division.

He's now a big, strong junior featherweight. Nakatani has just moved up to 122 against Hernandez. Is he physically strong enough to handle Inoue?

I think there are a lot of questions to be answered. That's what makes this fight so exciting, and we get to find out all of the answers on May 2.

It's a very intriguing matchup. Out of every fight that could be made in boxing at the moment, this is the No. 1 fight for me. I'm really excited to watch how it plays out.

I believe Nakatani has a very difficult style to figure out. He's very unorthodox. He's very long for the weight division. He's a southpaw. The way he crouches down, it's a very difficult style to go up against, and that's why everyone has so much trouble with him.

But on the other hand, Inoue, although he's more textbook and more orthodox in his style, he's also an extremely difficult puzzle to solve and hardly any fighter has had any success with him, barring those two knockdowns against Luis Nery and Ramon Cardenas.

Jason actually won a couple of rounds against Inoue, which is one of the very few fighters who can say that. But yeah, very few people have been able to take any rounds at all off Inoue, whereas fighters have been able to take rounds off Nakatani.

I had little moments of success in that fight against Nakatani, and we saw that his most recent fight against Hernandez was a very, very close fight.

Although it's a very difficult style to figure out in Nakatani, I believe if anyone's going to do it, it's Inoue. Inoue's foot speed is what impresses me the most. The way he's able to close the distance so fast with his feet and be so explosive with his movements is just exceptional to watch.

Inoue is going to need to close that distance on Nakatani. I believe that's going to be a big part in this fight, Inoue's ability to close the distance, land his shots, and then exit without getting hit. He's an absolute master of that. That is going to be what solves this puzzle to beat Nakatani.

The big difference between the two fighters is just how explosive Inoue is. Nakatani is a good puncher himself. He's quite long. He is fast. But Inoue's explosiveness and foot speed are going to be the edge in this fight, closing that distance and letting go of those just dynamite punches that he has.

I think Inoue wins this fight, and I can't wait to watch it unfold.