Naoya Inoue won the competition battle. But Ramon Cardenas won the perception war. The rugged but comprehensively unheralded Texan scored a shocking knockdown in the second round and gave nearly as good as he got for several more before finally crumbling under the pound-for-pound star’s perpetual wrath in Round 8 of a scheduled 12.

Naoya Inoue saved the boxing weekend with a thrilling comeback over Ramon Cardenas to defend his undisputed super bantamweight titles after an early knockdown in Las Vegas.