Taiki Naito

Naito made his professional debut against Hikaru Kawano in July 2011. He won the fight by unanimous decision. Naito won 13 of his next 15 fights, before being scheduled to fight a rematch with one of the two men who had defeated him, Kazuyuki Fushimi, for the SHOOT BOXING Japan Super Bantamweight title.[1] He defeated Fushimi by knockout in the fourth round.[2]

Naito won his next three fights, before taking part in the BLADE FC 55 kg tournament, held during BLADE FC 2. In the quarterfinal, he knocked Masahide Kudo out with a right hook in the first round. In the semifinals, he defeated Yuta Murakoshi by unanimous decision. In the tournament final, he faced the pound for pound great Tenshin Nasukawa. Nasukawa won the fight by TKO in the first round, managing to knock Naito down three times in the first round.[3]

He then won his next two shootboxing fights against Yukinori Ogasawara and Takanobu Sano, before losing a muay thai rules bout against Eisaku Ogasawara.[4] He defended his Shootboxing title with a third round knockout of Seiki Ueyama.[5]

He won two more shootboxing bouts, before unsuccessfully challenging for the Shootboxing Featherweight title held at the time by Kazuki Fukada, losing by majority decision at SHOOT BOXING 2017 act.3.[6] In his next fight, he defended his super bantamweight title, winning the rematch with Seiki Ueyama by unanimous decision.

After these two title fights, Naito participated in the 2017 RISE DEAD or Alive −57kg tournament. In the quarterfinals, he faced Kento Haraguchi. Their fight went into an extra round, after which Naito won a decision. Moving on to the semifinals, Naito defeated Masahide Kudo by unanimous decision. He won the tournament, with a fourth round knockout of MOMOTARO.[7][8]

At RISE 129, Naito fought a rematch with Tenshin Nasukawa. Nasukawa would dominate, as he did in their first fight, again dropping Naito thrice in the first round, winning by TKO.[9][10]

Naito made his ONE Championship debut against Alexi Serepisos at ONE Championship: Dawn Of Valor.[11] He won the fight by a third round TKO.[12] In his next fight, he faced Rui Botelho,[13] whom he defeated by unanimous decision. In his third ONE fight, Naito fought Savvas Michael, winning the fight by unanimous decision.[14]

He fought in a ONE main event for the first time at ONE Championship: Big Bang 2, when he fought the former ONE Flyweight Muay Thai World Champion Jonathan Haggerty. Haggerty won the fight by unanimous decision, dropping Naito in both the first and the second round.[15]