12 hours Ago By Brian Mazique, Contributor
Tonight is the night for Naoya Inoue to defend his undisputed junior featherweight title against Ramon Cardenas. There are eight scheduled fights on the card. I will have results updates for the first six fights, and then round-by-round updates with my scorecard for the co-main event and main event.
Naoya Inoue vs. Ramon Cardenas for Inoue’s undisputed junior featherweight championship Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for Espinoza’s WBO featherweight title Rohan Polanco vs.
Fabian Maidana Emiliano Fernando Vargas vs. Juan Leon Mikito Nakano vs. Pedro Marquez – featherweight Art Barrera Jr.
vs. Juan Carlos Guerra Jr. – junior middleweight Raeese Aleem vs.
Rudy Garcia – featherweight Patrick O’Connor vs. Marcus Smith – cruiserweight Inoue, 32, comes into Sunday’s fight with a spotless 29-0 record with 26 KOs. His 89.
66% KO rate is almost unheard of for a fighter in the smaller weight classes. To put it into perspective, Ricardo Lopez—who retired with a 51-0 record with 38 KOs—only has a 74.5% KO rate, and he is widely regarded as perhaps the most devastating puncher amongst the smaller guys in history.
The last man to go the distance with Inoue was the great Nonito Donaire. That fight happened in June 2022. For an active fighter like Inoue, that span accounts for six fights.
Imagine fighting six times in less than three years. That was fully meant with sarcasm and as a bit of a jab at some of our champions who are far less active. Cardenas, 29, is a worthy challenger.
He carries a record of 26-1 with 14 KOs. Speaking of active, Cardenas earned this shot with a unanimous decision win over Bryan Flores in February. Cardenas’ lone loss came against Danny Flores in April 2017.
The biggest question for Cardenas in this fight is: does he have enough power to get the Monster’s respect? We have seen Inoue tagged (Donaire landed a few strong left hooks), and we’ve seen him dropped (Luis Nery scored a clean knockdown with a left hook in the first round before The Monster overcame him). Both Nery and Donaire are big punchers and have been throughout their careers. We’ll see if Cardenas has what it takes to get Inoue’s attention.
If not, it could be another mauling for the Monster. Sunday’s card is a huge one as it represents the first major American appearance for Inoue. The vast majority of his fights have taken place in Japan, thus limiting the American access to his brilliance—at least from a live standpoint.
He is in a choice position. After lackluster events on Friday and Saturday as part of the Fatal Fury Cinco de Mayo boxing weekend, Inoue will be the subject of dozens of panegyrics (my new word of the day) from boxing pundits thanking him for delivering the kind of performance fight fans hoped to see over the last two days. Let’s watch to see if he responds with a memorable performance.
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