Via Craig Daly: In a terrifying move, IBF/WBA bantamweight champion Naoya ‘Monster’ Inoue (23-0, 20 KOs) knocked WBC champion Nonito Donaire (42-7, 28 KOs) to a pile of rubble. on the canvas to stop the four ex-world champions from dividing in the second round on Tuesday night on ESPN+.
While fans expected Inoue to win the fight, what they didn’t expect was him to do so against Donaire. After all, no one has been able to knock Donaire down so quickly in his 21-year professional playing career.
The only other boxer to have knocked out Donaire was ‘The Ax Man’ Nicholas Walters in 2014 in a sixth round knockout, but that was against a boxer who had a size advantage over him.
Inoue struggled in his 2019 bout against Donaire, staggered and fractured his face in the process to win the unanimous decision of 12 tough rounds in the World Super Boxing Championship. [WBSS] Final match.
However, that was when Donaire was 36 years old and still young. Tonight we saw a much older looking 39-year-old Donaire who had slowed vision compared to the gladiator he was 1000 days ago and not the fighter Inoue had worked so hard to defeat.
This time, Inoue made Donaire very fast, knocking him out in the first and second rounds with his right hand.
Donaire made it easy for Inoue by choosing to fight actively right from the portal instead of choosing to defeat him, which was clearly what he should have done.
Even after Donaire was dropped in the first round, he continued to brawl in the second round and was staggered twice by Inoue’s left hooks. Donaire was stable again from his knockdown in the first round, but he couldn’t change his game plan accordingly.
You would think that after being injured, Donaire and his trainer would switch to plan B because the fight was ineffective with the big puncher Inoue. He was too agile, strong and young for 39-year-old Donaire.
Referee Michael Griffin decided he had seen enough after Donaire was knocked out by Inoue in the second round. Although Donaire seemed less injured after the first kill, the referrer felt it was better to stop the match than let Inoue continue to defeat his old past, his best fighter.
On Friday, Donaire spoke about his mentality for the fight, making it clear he would fight Inoue. He won’t try to come to a decision in this war, and the war-like attitude towards Donaire comes back to haunt him.
Inoue wants the last one standing among the champions at 118th, the next WBO belt holder Paul Butler.
If Inoue can beat Butler, he’ll be the undisputed bantamweight champion, and then he can go up to 122 to take on two champions in that weight, Stephen Fulton and Murodjon Akhmadaliev .
