Naoya Inoue defends his undisputed super-bantamweight crown as TJ Doheny crumbles with harm

Naoya Inoue retained his undisputed super-bantamweight world championship as TJ Doheny crumbled with an harm at first of their seventh spherical.

Inoue is a contemporary nice, becoming a member of Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk as one of many three males lively at the moment to turn out to be two-weight, four-belt undisputed champions.

The accomplishments converse for him anyway, however so too has the blazing fashion of his performances. After going undisputed at bantamweight he swept by Stephen Fulton and Marlon Tapales to quickly unify the WBA, WBO, WBC and IBF world titles at 122lbs.

However in opposition to Doheny, Inoue was denied the spotlight reel end he has turn out to be accustomed to.

“Probably this fight didn’t end the way that you expected,” Inoue mentioned afterwards. “I feel it was extra the buildup of harm that I gave to him.

“I know boxing is not easy so I really wanted to be slowing down, doing one [round] at a time, giving my opponent damage.”

Doheny is a former world champion and an enormous southpaw and gave Inoue, who was dropped in his final combat by Luis Nery earlier than he secured a knockout win, some issues initially within the contest.

However Inoue quickly discovered options. He ramped up the stress, smacking arrow-straight crosses into Doheny. He labored the physique viciously and was grinding Doheny down.

The Irishman was feeling these assaults as Inoue closed out the sixth spherical strongly. Inoue maintained that to start the seventh and he cracked Doheny with a left hook to the physique amongst an assortment of punches.

Doheny all of the sudden pulled up 16 seconds into the seventh spherical, clutching his again, and needed to withdraw injured.

“You can expect more from me in the future,” Inoue insisted afterwards.

“To all the fans around the world thank you so much for watching this fight. This is not everything that I have, I still have a long way to go.

“I’m nonetheless in progress and at the moment’s match I need to have fun particularly how TJ Doheny introduced the combat into this ring and his profession.”

Inoue is predicted to combat in Japan later this 12 months, making one other defence of his undisputed super-bantamweight world title earlier than a possible date in America in 2025.

Promoter Bob Arum mentioned: “I understand he’ll be coming back here to Tokyo to defend his title again at the end of the year and then we’re taking him to the United States for a big celebration in Las Vegas.”

Undercard motion

Yoshiki Takei, in simply his tenth skilled combat, managed to retain his WBO bantamweight world title after a frenetic 12-round battle with Daigo Higa.

Higa stored the champion below intense stress. He labored his method ahead on the entrance foot and related with thumping hooks when he trapped Takei on the ropes.

Takei moved nicely when he put his footwork to make use of however too usually stood to commerce with Higa and needed to endure pictures from his challenger blasting by a too-open guard.

At lengthy vary, he compelled hurtful uppercuts into Higa, however regarded in bother when he misplaced his footing beneath one other hook and had the primary knockdown of his skilled profession scored in opposition to him.

He threw every thing at Higa within the twelfth and ultimate spherical, jolting his challenger again with an onslaught of punches. He wanted that large end to take an in depth however unanimous determination, 115-112 and 114-113 twice.

On the undercard, Andy Hiroaka served discover that he will probably be a risk within the super-lightweight division when he halted Ismael Barroso within the ninth spherical of their WBA title eliminator.

Barroso is likely to be 41 years outdated however remained harmful, demonstrating that in his final combat in January when he demolished Britain’s Ohara Davies in a single spherical.

Hiraoka scored his first knockdown within the sixth spherical, a tangle of their legs seeing Barroso tumble over. But when that was a questionable name, there might be little doubt about how he put Barroso away within the ninth.

He smashed the Venezuelan with an arching left and hammered Barroso right down to a knee with a follow-up assault.

One other left shook Barroso up and Hiraoka floored him for a second time within the spherical.

The Venezuelan simply beat the depend, however his nook withdrew him.

Jin Sasaki additionally caught the attention when he took out Qamil Balla with a leaping left hook.

Extra hard-hitting boxing motion will probably be developing later this month when Anthony Joshua fights Daniel Dubois on September 21 dwell on Sky Sports activities Field Workplace.