Naoya Inoue retained his undisputed tremendous bantamweight championship with a seventh spherical TKO win over TJ Doheny in a combat that had an anticlimactic ending and somewhat little bit of attention-grabbing boxing beforehand.
Inoue (28-0, 25 KO) does get the stoppage and was more and more in charge of the combat, however the stoppage got here on account of what seemed to be a decrease again or leg damage to Doheny (26-5, 20 KO), whose intelligent, veteran savvy-style boxing had given Inoue some first rate appears if not what you’d name “matches.”
Inoue seemed to be constructing critical momentum along with his physique work within the remaining couple of rounds earlier than the stoppage at 16 seconds of the seventh spherical, and the end result was trying much less and fewer unsure, however you hate to see any fighter get stopped on the type of little factor that may simply occur in there.
Give the 37-year-old Doheny his credit score, because the Irish-Aussie southpaw got here in with a authentic plan and had some success towards Inoue, 31, even when he by no means appeared more likely to really win the combat over the lengthy haul.
We’ll now wait to see what comes subsequent for Inoue, who might probably combat on New 12 months’s Eve, which is at all times an enormous combat date in Japan and one Inoue has really not completed, although he’s had a number of December fights in his profession, together with the final three years.
Within the chief assist, Yoshiki Takei (10-0, 8 KO) retained his WBO bantamweight title, coming off the canvas — formally, at the very least — to outlive an ideal problem from Daigo Higa (21-3-1, 19 KO) over 12 rounds.
Takei gained a incredible motion combat on scores of 114-113, 114-113, and 115-112, which is a very truthful consequence, however it was a hell of a check for the 28-year-old titleholder, as Higa seemed loads just like the man he was imagined to be earlier than a tough five-fight run the place he went 2-2-1 in 2018-21.
