(Tokyo) Unified super-bantamweight world champion (WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO), Japanese boxer Naoya Inoue successfully defended his titles by stopping Irishman TJ Doheny in the seventh round, Tuesday in Tokyo.
Still undefeated in 28 fights (25 of which were won by the limit), Inoue was declared the winner when Doheny was unable to continue after a barrage of body blows from the man nicknamed “Monster.”
The 31-year-old Japanese champion was putting all his titles into play for the second time since he unified the category last December.
He is only the second man, after American Terence Crawford, to become undisputed world champion in two different weight classes since the start of the four major federations era in 2004.
Inoue previously unified the bantamweight division in late 2022.
In his previous fight against Mexican Luis Nery in front of 55,000 spectators at the Tokyo Dome in May, the Zama native was knocked down for the first time in his career, but he never looked in danger against the 37-year-old Doheny.
Faced with a cautious opponent, Inoue had to be patient, but he began to land increasingly powerful blows as the fight progressed.
PHOTO YUICHI YAMAZAKI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
TJ Doheny and Naoya Inoue
It came to an abrupt end when Doheny, who appeared to have a hip injury, suddenly began limping about 20 seconds into the seventh round.
Unable to walk, his team then had to help him out of the ring.
Following the setback, Doheny, who held the IBF super bantamweight title from 2018 to 2019, has a winning record of 26 (including 20 knockouts) and five losses.