July 23, 2023, felt like a beginning.
The stakes suggested otherwise; the hardware and other credentials indicated a culmination—a burst of violence and the afterglow of achievement. What transpired in the Ariake Arena that July might have functioned as just such an end had Stephen Fulton’s hand been raised, had he left Japan not only the unified super bantamweight champion of the world but the man who halted the inexorable. Because where do you go from there?
Instead, it was a beginning; a confirmation that expectations needed to be calibrated to an unmatched ambition, an unparalleled talent. Naoya Inoue’s demolition of Fulton did more than unify the super bantamweight division—it rendered its remains irrelevant. Because if Fulton had nothing for “The Monster,” what 122-pound fighter did?
Not Marlon Tapales or Luis Nery, who earned their pounds of flesh proudly before being heaped on the pile of shattered aspirants. Not TJ Doheny, not Ye Joon Kim. You could run a charitable finger down the list of super bantamweights—better: start at the bottom and work up!—and find nothing but underdogs, placeholders in an extraneous series, their rankings applying only to each other, not to the fighter in whose shadow they toiled. For Inoue, Fulton should have marked the beginning of a new assault, added pounds and a fresh invasion, one that would have spared the fighters that “The Monster” bypassed a visit to the shadow realm—and done them the further kindness of letting each overlooked challenger pretend that Inoue’s avoidance of those lingering (and middling) threats was the source of his preservation.
Ink seals the mismatch, not blood; it should be the business of matchmakers, not fighters. And yet, Inoue pushed back against this maxim because his mismatches materialized most strikingly after the bell. They manifested not in the results, which stopped being in doubt long before people stopped doubting Inoue, but in the ease of dispatch. He atomized opponents, sending even the stern into crisis. Ending early, brutally, or both, the Inoue mismatch retained its charm in having to be proven. Was he expected to win the WBSS bantamweight tournament? Yes, but the manner of victory augmented his path to the championship. The twelve rounds Nonito Donaire demanded of him in the finale only further ratified Inoue’s absurd precocity. Their rematch two and a half years later, a mismatch sealed in ink, served as confirmation—however superfluous, however undesired—that Inoue’s celestial ascension outpaced Donaire’s decline.
Heading into Sunday, and Inoue’s return to the US, where he would face Ramon Cardenas from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, had expectations changed?
Tapales was the IBF champion, pursuing his title immediately after dispatching Fulton, when most fighters would have gladly taken a victory lap—seriousness like this sets Inoue and his ilk apart. More importantly, it was typical of him, of his accelerated ambition, that, like an express bus, skips all stops between major intersections. The Nery fight allowed Inoue to massacre a mandatory challenger who had vilified himself in Japan for failed weigh-ins and drug tests alike.
But what justified Doheny, who represented barely a stay-busy fight for a fighter who had already stayed busy butchering the world-class? Kim was a poor replacement for Sam Goodman, who was twice injured in preparation for Inoue rather than once concussed for answering the opening bell. Good man, Sam, but you hadn’t a prayer.
To borrow from JM Coetzee, Inoue post-Fulton felt like a fighter in the “gyroscopes of the Grand Design,” one fixed in the orbit of a larger celestial body, part of a plan that kept him in a controlled and predictable motion. But should Inoue be promoted like a regular fighter, guided by the principles applied to maximize the earnings (and safety) of fighters well beneath his ability?
Some promotional material for Inoue’s return emphasized his activity, with Cardenas being Inoue’s fourth fight in a year. Too many fighters have decided that biannual combat is sufficient to achieve the accolades they have bestowed upon themselves, no doubt because such a schedule has proven enough to sustain a lifestyle that justifies controlled risk. Thankfully, Inoue is not one of them. But the emphasis on quantity seemed a tell, as though more of who we want should supersede more of what we want: think Deftones’ B-Sides and Rarities, an exhibition of profound talent in service perfunctory obligation.
One might argue that Inoue’s return warranted another fatted calf for an opponent. This sacrifice to confirm the esteem of the headliner is part of the grand design; one need only look at the unenterprising career of Gervonta Davis for proof of what treasure can be surfaced by treading water. But even those who traveled to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, who lined up for hours just to see Inoue weigh in, would rather a fight than a fighter be the reward for their time and money.
They got both.
With sound strategy and the irreverence needed to shatter an idol, Cardenas was that fighter. Inoue, who, on the brink of disaster, rallied to reaffirm his greatness—he, too, was that fighter. And the eight ferocious rounds they shared were the fight.
In the second round, a vicious counter hook planted Inoue violently on the canvas. Should Cardenas relive that moment for a lifetime, its sweetness will likely come with the bitter fantasy of a few seconds more. Inoue was up with only eight seconds remaining in the round, but in such a state that it is fair to wonder whether thrice that would have made history.
Alas, Inoue made it to his corner, and used the remaining six rounds to eliminate first the predictability in his attack that Cardenas was, with incredible charm, masterfully and maliciously exploiting—and then to grind this defiant and sturdy man to pieces. But it must be said—because Cardenas deserves it—that despite being dropped in the seventh round, the San Antonio fighter remained defiant. For all the telltale signs of his disintegration, Cardenas remained committed to the fight, to the life-altering counters he launched—and to paying victory’s ultimately ruinous price. The fighter that referee Thomas Taylor rescued a round later was upright and eager to sacrifice whatever he had left.
There was always the chance that Inoue would fall victim to the drudgery of his profession, surprised in one of the valleys on the EKG monitoring his engagement, and he came precariously close to such a comeuppance on Sunday. Cardenas, this would-be saboteur, hurt Inoue like no one before; his technique and toughness humbled an arrogant destroyer. But Inoue is at his best when threatened. In those harrowing moments, however few they may be, Inoue finds a joy mere victory cannot provide and the excellence demanded to achieve it.
Is that instructive? Could it be that the best version of Inoue is achieved only when genuinely threatened? And if so, does it make sense for someone so preternaturally competitive to be sped to his end if he wills it? That he wills it, not defeat so much as a near-disastrous intimation with it, is something that Inoue’s more arrogant and imperfect performances seem to suggest.
Imagine every fighter obstructing the path to Inoue becoming the undisputed featherweight champion, swelling with confidence as they watched Sunday. The years, the rounds, and the scale demand a reckoning. Inoue has, in the words of Martin Amis, “lost the advantage of being unbelievable. The decisive asset of being beyond belief.” Ironically, his being beyond belief mortalized him. Fighters who can exploit the outlay of Inoue’s greatness, exacerbate it with ill-intentioned means, know now that the end—that other grand design, that other inexorable—lies in wait. And these men, surely they can usher it forth. Or so they think.
May 4, 2025, felt like a beginning, too.
In Between Rounds 