Immediately following Naoya Inoue’s stoppage win over Roman Cardenas this past weekend, commentator Tim Bradley shared his thoughts on what transpired, particularly with Inoue getting dropped hard and having to regain his focus to come back and win.
“I’ll tell you one thing…you can’t be getting hit with those shots, man,” Bradley said of Inoue’s knockdown. That’s just plain and simple. You can’t be getting hit with those shots and going down like that, bro. Seriously, especially against caliber guys. Now this guy [Cardenas] is a real guy, he is, top 10 guy, he’s been ID’ed. He got punching power in both hands.
“And the way [Inoue] was able to get up, I’m going to give him credit, he got up, he did the same thing he did to Nery. He broke this guy down and was able to get him out of there. However, man, look, you want to go up to 126 and you want to try to dominate that division, there’s some lions there, too, dudes that can take your stuff.
“Remember, he’s a small guy. He a small guy moving up, man. It’s challenging for him. The guy tonight, he really didn’t hit that hard with the single punches, it was more the cumulative effect, the combinations and the speed at which he punch you.
“You say, hey, there’s moments where you can take advantage of Inoue if you know them. You have to know them, you got to have film study. You got to know and recognize them. However, fantastic job. Great finish and he’s different. He’s a beast. As long as he got heart and blood running through his veins and his heart is pumping, ya’ll in trouble. Anybody.”
