Naoya Inoue rose from the canvas to take out Ramon Cardenas and defend the undisputed super-bantamweight world championship.
The sensible Naoya Inoue is a pound-for-pound famous person and a two-weight undisputed champion.
However Cardenas, impressed in his efficiency on the T-Cell Enviornment in Las Vegas on Cinco De Mayo weekend, got here with an upset in thoughts.
The challenger swallowed a tough straight one-two mixture on the finish of the primary spherical however made a shocking breakthrough on the finish of the second.
As Inoue was letting his heavy arms go, he wandered sq. on. Cardenas bobbed his physique down and drove again as much as blast a left hook flush into the champion’s chin.
It dropped Inoue closely.
Within the subsequent spherical Inoue needed to regroup. Cardenas, although, stored the heavy strikes coming. Inoue simply ducked beneath an enormous proper hook however a left hook from his opponent noticed him stumble again a few paces.
Cardenas landed a stable proper cross within the fourth spherical, however Inoue started to show the stream of the competition his manner.
A savage large left hook from Inoue smacked in. The champion ripped an uppercut in, too, and his proper started to rock Cardenas. He opened up with abandon, however Inoue had now established his timing and was touchdown with actual energy.
Adapting to his opponent, Inoue took command. Within the sixth spherical he smashed Cardenas throughout the ring. Backing the challenger into the ropes, Inoue opened up on him.
Cardenas tried to smile. Baring his mouthpiece in an effort to faux he wasn’t harm, Cardenas was in hassle.
Finally Cardenas hauled himself off the ropes and despatched a quick left hook streaking down at Inoue. However the Japanese star resumed his assault, hammering punch after punch into Cardenas, leaving the American now, with little else left, to point out off his toughness.
However Cardenas could not face up to far more. Within the seventh spherical he felt a physique shot and wilted only for a second.
A left to the physique despatched Cardenas staggering again. Inoue opened up with a blazing mixture of headshots. The fitting hit in, the left hook adopted after which a triple proper noticed Cardenas fall into the nook submit.
Inoue finally took out Cardenas within the eighth spherical
There was no escape for Cardenas. Initially of the eighth spherical Inoue subjected him to an unrelenting storm of punches and the referee needed to intervene to spare the challenger.
The unified WBO, WBA, WBC and IBF world titles stay in Inoue’s possession.
However Cardenas had put in a fantastic effort. “I never cared about losses. It’s about the best fighting the best,” Cardenas mentioned. “I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas. So I came to give everything.
“I informed my coach, that if I am going out, then I’ll exit on my protect. That is what I did.”
Inoue acknowledged how exciting the bout had been. “By watching tonight’s battle, everyone seems to be nicely conscious that I prefer to brawl,” the champion said afterwards with some understatement.
“I used to be very shocked [at the knockdown], however I took issues calmly and put myself collectively.
“It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.
“I knew he was robust,” Inoue added. “Boxing shouldn’t be that simple.”
On the undercard Rafael Espinoza overwhelmed Edward Vazquez to defend the WBO featherweight world title. He had Vazquez going within the fourth spherical and put him beneath additional stress within the fifth, earlier than finally stopping him in seven.
Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, scored one other eye-catching knockout when he floored Juan Leon within the second spherical, sustaining his unbeaten file.
