LIVING up to his moniker as the “Monster,” Japanese Naoya Inoue stopped Nonito Donaire Jr. in the second round of their rematch in front of 37,000 adoring hometown fans at the packed Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan last Tuesday night.
Inoue needed just 284 seconds to unify three world bantamweight titles, from decking Donaire in the dying seconds of the first round with a jarring overhead right to the crushing left hook that knocked the lights out of the “Filipino Flash” for good in the second.
In making a strong case as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the word, Inoue, 29, annexed the World Boxing Council bantamweight title of Donaire while retaining his World Boxing Association super bantam and International Boxing Federation bantam belts.
The baby-faced Japanese assassin kept his unblemished record, chalking up his 23rd straight win and claiming his 20th knockout victim while Donaire,39. absorbed his seventh and, perhaps, most stinging loss against 42 wins (28 KOs).
Magnanimous in victory, Inoue paid Donaire the ultimate compliment at the post-match press conference through an interpreter, saying that “it’s precisely because of Donaire that I was able to win this third title.
“He was a champion that I admired when I was a school student.”
He added that he “would love to stay in this division” as he set his sights on the World Boxing Organization crown of Briton Paul Butler.
Still reeling from the setback, Donaire skipped the press conference but sent word that Inoue was a “worthy winner” while adding that he was proud and satisfied with how he fought.
“I wanted to feel more comfortable as the fight went on, so the first round was a very important one,” said the Filipino fighter, who drew an ovation from the appreciative hometown crowd after bowing to them repeatedly before the fight.
Appearing later in his YouTube channel with wife and manager-trainer Rachel, Donaire said he was unaware that he was knocked down near the end of the first round.
“When I got hit, I didn’t even know I got dropped,” Donaire confessed in a report of Jake Donovan on boxingscene.com yesterday several hours after the fight. “That first (knockdown), I came up completely blank. I didn’t see that punch coming at all.
“I didn’t even know what happened. I was trying to counter. All of a sudden, I was on the floor and (referee Michael Griffin) was counting. I was like ‘What is happening? Are you kidding me?’” he recalled.
“Then I looked in the corner and Rachel said, ‘Put your hands up or he’ll count you out.’ And I’m like ‘Oh sh!t, I got dropped!’
“I didn’t see that punch because I was trying to counter him and got caught. That was pretty much it,” Donaire summed up of his defeat. “I will pretty much say that was the hardest punch I’ve ever been hit with.”
It was a short-lived reign for Donaire, who became the oldest world bantamweight champion at 38 when he knocked out erstwhile undefeated Frenchman Nordine Oubaali in the fourth round on May 29, 2021 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson City, California to clinch the WBC belt.
