Naoya Inoue retained his undisputed junior featherweight championship with a seventh-round TKO victory over TJ Doheny on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Inoue (28-0, 25 KOs) was a staggering -6500 favorite, per ESPN BET, to keep his four 122-pound titles. Doheny (26-5, 20 KOs) was more than game, but he succumbed 16 seconds into Round 7 following a barrage of body punches from Inoue.
Doheny, a 37-year-old Irishman fighting out of Australia, stopped the action and immediately grabbed his lower back with his right glove. The referee halted the bout and afterward Doheny needed assistance from two team members to walk to the locker room.
“I know boxing is not easy, so I really wanted to slow it down, one [round] at a time, giving my opponent damage,” Inoue, ESPN’s No. 3 pound-for-pound boxer, said in interpreted remarks. “I am still [a work] in progress. … I want to celebrate how TJ Doheny brought the fight.”
Inoue’s co-promoter, Top Rank’s Bob Arum, said “The Monster” would return to Tokyo for the third defense of his undisputed championship at the end of the year. After that, Inoue will headline in Las Vegas “for a big celebration,” per Arum.
The last seven fights for the 31-year-old Inoue have taken place in Japan, where he’s a major star. His last stateside fight was in June 2021.
Inoue was more methodical than usual. He picked his spots, electing to target Doheny’s body with sharp right hands and left hooks to the liver.
Doheny held his ground through five rounds, using feints to set up a lead left hand from the southpaw position and the occasional right hook. He also found success with body shots preceded with a jab, particularly in Round 3, his best of the fight.
The fight was Doheny’s fourth consecutive in Japan; he entered the ring 4-0 in the nation (and No. 9 in ESPN’s 122-pound rankings). The former titleholder, however, had never faced a boxer the caliber of Inoue, a future Hall of Famer.
By Round 6, Inoue took control of the fight. He punctuated the round with a series of stinging body shots that Doheny (with his face badly marked up) seemingly never recovered from.
The win was Inoue’s ninth consecutive via KO/TKO.
It’s undecided whom Inoue will face next, but it’s likely to come against one of two mandatory challengers — Australia’s Sam Goodman or Uzbekistan’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev.
Whomever he fights, Inoue will compete at 122 pounds for a fifth consecutive time ahead of a potential jump to featherweight next year.