LAS VEGAS — After watching multi-millionaires waltz through bout after bout the previous two days, it was great on Sunday to finally see a fight.
Naoya Inoue and Ramon Cardenas put on a show that put the lifeless sparring sessions delivered by Devin Haney, Jose Ramirez, Ryan Garcia, Canelo Alvarez and William Scull to shame.
Inoue, who was dropped hard by a perfect counter left hook in the second, successfully defended the undisputed super bantamweight title by stopping Cardenas 45 seconds into the eighth round Sunday at T-Mobile Arena.
Inoue was a star going into the fight, and he delivered a performance that left the crowd of 8,474 on its feet chanting his name.
But Cardenas made himself into a star by showing a massive heart and a fierce will to win that his predecessors in much more hyped bouts failed to deliver.
Even as Inoue turned the bout around in the fourth with blistering combinations, Cardenas never surrendered and was winging powerful shots back at the Japanese superstar until Taylor wisely jumped in to stop it.
I couldn’t care less to ever see Haney again after that dreadful fight with Ramirez on Friday.
But Cardenas? If you’re not eager to see his next fight, you either don’t have a pulse or your favorite sport is field hockey.
Cardenas had the guts of a burglar, standing in front of one of the division’s all-time greats and giving as good as he got for much of the fight.
Inoue, who led 68-63 on all cards at the time of the stoppage, took joy in slugging it out with Cardenas.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said. “I was very surprised [by the knockdown], but I took things calmly and put myself together.”
He was roughly a 50-1 favorite but said he knew Cardenas would be a stiffer test. You hear a boxer is a 50-1 favorite and you often correctly believe the opponent was a reject from the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Promoter Bob Arum attributed the entertaining night Sunday to matchmaking. Top Rank has been in business for 60 years and its matchmakers, Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman, are both in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Arum said Cardenas promoter Samson Lewkowicz told him before the fight that Cardenas would show up and not be intimidated.
Mikey Williams/Top Rank
Ramon Cardenas (L) and Naoya Inoue battle in their undisputed super bantamweight title fight Sunday.
And Arum called out the way fights are being put together by other promoters and companies.
“He’s a terrific fighter, and we knew that,” Arum said. “Samson said, ‘Maybe my guy doesn’t win, but he’s really going to entertain the people,’ and he did. Look, we know what’s happening in boxing now. We know there is matchmaking where you match two names and the names are familiar but the fights are shit.
“People who know what they’re doing, know that. People who know how to match fighters, like professional matchmakers, know how to make good fights which are entertaining. And tonight, you saw an incredibly good fight. … I don’t care how much money you have and what you want to pay, if you don’t know how to match the fighters, you don’t have shit.”
The fight was sensational most of the way, and Inoue was avoiding some of Cardenas’ power shots by very small margins.
It is not unrealistic to think Cardenas could have won under slightly different circumstances. He said it wasn’t Inoue’s power that was his downfall. He said it was the multi-punch combinations that ultimately did him in.
“I told my trainer before this, I said, ‘Look, I want to go out on my shield, you know what I mean?’ And I think that's what I did,” Cardenas said. “And again, like you said, I gained some fans. I'm not necessarily sad about [the loss]. I'm just kind of bummed out. But, I mean, it is what it is.”
Trainer Joel Diaz said he doesn’t have a lot of super bantamweights in his gym and so Cardenas often trains with guys who are super featherweights and lightweights.
So Diaz was confident Cardenas wouldn’t fold the first time he was hit.
Inoue, though, admitted Cardenas shocked him.
“He’s a lot better than I thought he was,” Inoue said.
Inoue, who will face Murodjon Akhmadaliev in September, is going to get hit hard occasionally because he’s an offensive fighter who takes chances.
The crowd reaction, though, told you it didn’t care. It saw a thrilling back-and-forth battle, and after back-to-back nights of watching guys go through the motions despite making seven-figure paydays, it was nice to feel the passion in the air once again.
After two nights of empty hype and padded paychecks, Inoue and Cardenas reminded everyone what this sport is supposed to be. It’s not about who shouts loudest or cashes the biggest check — it’s about who fights the hardest and who sacrifices the most. And on Sunday, finally, two guys who cared showed us what a fight is all about.
Mikey Williams/Top Rank
Referee Thomas Taylor gaves Naoya Inoue the count in the second round.