Naoya Inoue rises from the canvas to defeat Luis Nery via a devastating sixth-round knockout… as the undisputed super bantamweight king asserts his status as the #1 pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.
- Naoya Inoue suffered first knockdown of his career in victory over Luis Nery
- But the undisputed champion recovered to score a sixth-round knockout in Tokyo.
- The undefeated 31-year-old has 24 knockouts in 27 fights as a professional.
Undisputed world super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue recovered from the first knockdown of his professional career to stop Luis Nery in devastating fashion.
The 31-year-old Japanese, who has held four world titles at four different weights and two undisputed titles, lost in the first round but bounced back to secure a sixth round victory after beating his Mexican opponent for the third time with a brutal right hand.
Nery stunned both the champion and a crowd of 55,000 at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, where Buster Douglas shocked Mike Tyson in 1990, when just two minutes into the fight he floored Inoue with a left hook .
However, Nery had to get back up from the canvas in the second half after the Japanese fighter caught him with a short left.
Inoue scored heavily with a straight right in an impressive display in the third round and began to showboat in the fourth as a frustrated Nery repeatedly missed the target with his big punches and was peppered with jabs and blows to the body of his opponent.
Naoya Inoue came off the canvas to retain his undisputed super bantamweight crown against Luis Nery
A short left hook from Neary dropped Inoue for the first time in his career in the first round
But the 31-year-old recovered and controlled much of the match on the front foot.
An explosive right in the sixth round sent Nery crashing into the ropes and marked Inoue’s 24th KO victory.
The four-weight world champion has now won his last eight fights at distance
The 29-year-old’s work became increasingly messy as he tired and after being warned for leading with his head, he was knocked down by another left hook in the fifth round, and the end came in the middle of the sixth.
Inoue, nicknamed “The Monster”, had opened Nery with a deadly combination and forced him to the ropes, sent him with a vicious right hand to end the contest and complete a second defense of the titles that he won in December.
It was the 27th victory of his undefeated career and the 24th knockout, and only a second defeat for Nery in 37 fights.
