Andreas HaleMay 5, 2025, 02:06 AM ET
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Andreas Hale is a fight sports activities reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and professional wrestling. In Andreas’ free time, he performs video video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He’s additionally a bunch for Sirius XM’s Battle Nation. Earlier than becoming a member of ESPN, Andreas was a senior author at DAZN and Sporting Information. He began his profession as a music journalist for retailers together with HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z’s Life+Occasions. He’s additionally an NAACP Picture Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated quick movie “Bridges” in 2024.
LAS VEGAS — Heading into Sunday night, what was purported to be one of many largest weekends in boxing had turned out to be an absolute dud with prime stars Canelo Alvarez, Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney failing to impress. Luckily, Naoya Inoue answered the decision and saved the weekend with an electrifying efficiency towards Ramon Cardenas, who deserves a ton of credit score for bringing the struggle to “The Monster.” Inoue efficiently retained his undisputed junior featherweight championship with an thrilling eighth-round stoppage of Cardenas at T-Cell Area, and cemented himself as a must-see fighter. Whereas he could not have the social media following of Garcia or the worldwide star energy of Canelo, Inoue’s efficiency on Sunday could have secured his place as probably the most thrilling fighter within the sport proper now.
CompuBox Punch Stats
Punches
Inoue
Cardenas
Complete landed
176
80
Complete thrown
462
290
%
38.1%
27.6%
Jabs landed
68
35
Jabs thrown
242
158
%
28.1%
22.2%
Energy landed
108
45
Energy thrown
220
132
%
49.1%
34.1%
The struggle had every part that makes an excellent contest, with Inoue having to select himself up off the canvas in Spherical 2 and Cardenas exhibiting unbelievable grit and willpower earlier than lastly succumbing to the overwhelming strain of Inoue. Most significantly, it was a crowd-pleasing struggle that followers will bear in mind as ESPN’s No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter saved boxing from what was shaping as much as be a disastrous weekend.
The very best half is that Inoue will proceed producing extra of those performances as he pursues his purpose of constructing historical past. Regardless of being one in every of three males’s boxers who’ve been undisputed in two weight lessons, Inoue isn’t content material and has teased a transfer to featherweight quickly, the place he’ll try and develop into undisputed in an unprecedented third weight class. Earlier than that, he’ll throw down with Murodjon “MJ” Akhmadaliev in Tokyo in September and is anticipated to have a showdown with fellow Japanese fighter, bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani in 2026.
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However what makes Inoue particular is that he doesn’t simply come to win, he goals to please by throttling the opposition and stopping the judges from weighing in on the end result. His 90% knockout fee is spectacular for a small fighter, and he has continued to pile on the finishes towards more durable opposition, resembling Stephen Fulton, Marlon Tapales and Luis Nery, amongst others. He’s now using an 11-fight knockout streak — all in title fights — and has proven no indicators of slowing down. Add in the truth that he generates life-changing energy from the smaller weight lessons and you’ve got a transparent recipe for a world celebrity that’s aesthetically pleasing and keen to throw down, not like a few of his counterparts who competed this weekend.
Merely put, Inoue isn’t simply probably the greatest fighters on this planet, he’s probably the most thrilling.
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