Naoya Inoue dropped and stopped Marlon Tapales on Tuesday, becoming a two-weight undisputed champion in the process.
With his 10th-round victory in Tokyo, the Japanese unified his WBC and WBO super-bantamweight belts with Tapales’s WBA and IBF titles. The result made Inoue, 30, just the second man to become undisputed in two divisions in the four-belt era, after Terence Crawford achieved that feat in July.
Tapales, 31, was a game opponent in the Japanese capital, but ultimately the Filipino went the same way as all of Inoue’s other opponents, as the home fighter stayed unbeaten and solidified his status as a four-weight world champion.
Inoue appeared to drop Tapales with a counter jab in round two, but the referee instead ruled the moment a slip by the Filipino. However, Inoue would score official knockdowns in rounds four and 10, with the latter ending the fight.
At the end of round four, it was a left hook by Inoue that hurt Tapales, who was then put down by an onslaught of follow-up shots. Yet the southpaw showed resilience to fight on and make the bout competitive, even landing a number of clean shots to the head and body of Inoue, targeting the latter well in the clinch.
It seemed that the fight would go the distance, until Tapales stumbled backwards and fell to his knees in round 10, despite appearing to block a heavy right cross. The power of the shot seemingly proved too much for the WBA and IBF champion, who crawled forwards but could not stand in time to beat the referee’s count.
Inoue after knocking down Tapales in round 10— (AP)
As a result, the Filipino surrendered his belts to Inoue, who took the WBC and WBO titles from Stephen Fulton with a devastating finish in July.
Inoue’s undisputed success in the super-bantamweight division comes just over a year after the “Monster” became undisputed champion at bantamweight. The 30-year-old, Indy Sport’s pound-for-pound No 1 boxer, previously reigned as world champion at light-flyweight and super-flyweight.
“First of all, I would like to give a big shoutout to Marlon Tapales for taking this fight with me,” he said in the ring after his victory. “Secondly, I would like to thank everyone who supported me and made this fight happen.
Inoue celebrates becoming undisputed champion in a second division— (AP)
“Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to fight against such a tough opponent. I think super-bantamweight is my division now, so in 2024 I will look to show even greater form.
“I am so relieved at the moment to be victorious against such a strong, tough and spirited opponent.”
Inoue added that he was especially happy to secure the win in such decisive fashion. “He never showed me fatigue or damage,” Inoue said. “I couldn’t see that from his face, so I was quite surprised when he went down in the 10th round.”
