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.

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.