Naoya Inoue survives early knockdown, stops Cardenas in 8

Japanese pound-for-pound superstar Naoya Inoue overcame an early knockdown en route to a successful defense of his undisputed super bantamweight title against Ramon Cardenas this Monday (Manila time) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, USA.

After feeling each other out, Cardenas dropped Inoue with a big left hand in round two. Inoue recovered, threw his own shots, and looked close to scoring a knockdown himself in round 4.

Inoue threw every punch in the book in round 6, backing Cardenas to the ropes where the latter threw shots of his own that momentarily stopped the Japanese in his tracks. A right hook to the body had hurt Cardenas in round 7 before getting dropped with repeated right straights on top.

A barrage of unanswered punches from Inoue did the trick the following round, prompting the referee to halt the contest at the 0:45 mark of round 8, earning Inoue a technical knockout victory.

The win improved his record to 30-0 with 27 knockouts while Cardenas fell to 26-2 with 14 knockouts.

KING ****.

INOUE STAYS ON TOP. pic.twitter.com/Igd1Zo9YxI

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) May 5, 2025

—JMB, GMA Integrated News