Inoue thrills crowd with comeback win in Tokyo
Undisputed world superbantamweight 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 world titles at four different weights and two undisputed, went down in the first round, but picked himself up to secure a sixth-round victory after putting his Mexican opponent down for the third time with a brutal right hand.
Nery stunned both the champion and a 55,000 sell-out crowd at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, where Buster Douglas shocked Mike Tyson in 1990, when barely two minutes into the fight he floored Inoue with a swinging left hook.
However, Nery had to pick himself up from the canvas in the second after the Japanese fighter caught him with a short left.
Inoue scored heavily with the straight right in an impressive third-round display and began to showboat in the fourth as a frustrated Nery repeatedly missed the target with his big punches and was peppered with his opponent’s jab and body shots.
The 29-year-old’s work became increasingly untidy as he tired and after being warned for leading with his head, he was felled by another left hook in round five, and the end arrived midway through the sixth.
Inoue, nicknamed ‘The Monster’, had opened up Nery with a lethal combination and having forced him on to the ropes, dispatched him with a vicious right hand to end the contest and complete a successful second defence of the titles he won in December.
“How did you like the big surprise in the first round? I was not happy I got knocked down,” Inoue said.
“That happening gave me good motivation. I am so thankful to get the fight against Nery.”