WBO super flyweight world champion Naoya “The Monster” Inoue (14-0, 12 KOs) easily took care of Antonio “Carita” Nieves (17-2-2, 9 KOs) in beating him by a 6th round retirement stoppage on Saturday night on the “SuperFly” card at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Nieves’ corner let the referee know after round 6 that he wouldn’t be coming out for the 7th. Inoue knocked Nieves down in round 5 with a shot to the midsection. Nieves took a knee and beat the count. Inoue continued to try and go after Nieves to knock him out, but he did a good job of moving to keep out of range.
Inoue was stocking Nieves throughout the ring in rounds 1-5, landing hard body shots, hooks, right hands and jabs. Nieves couldn’t stand his ground
In round 6, Inoue hit Nieves with some tremendous shots, but somehow he was able to make it through the round. It was surprising though, because Nieves was taking a really bad beating and offering next to nothing back. Inoue was visibly upset with Nieves’ reluctance to stand and fight him.
Twice during the round, Inoue stopped and stood in the center of the ring, motioning for Nieves to come to him and fight. Inoue held his arms out in frustration. Nieves just looked at Inoue, and continued to move around the ring to try and survive. Near the end of the round, Nieves clinched Inoue. This didn’t go to well with Inoue, who made a face and wriggled out of the clinch with an annoyed look on his face. Inoue made it clear that he doesn’t like clinching.
At the end of the round, Nieves’ corner let the referee Lou Moret know that they wanted the fight to be stopped. The official time of the stoppage was at 3:00 of round 6.
The only negative that I saw in Inoue’s game was his defense. He gets hit. Nieves was able to hit him a number of times with his shots, but he didn’t have the power to hurt him. If Inoue faces someone with power and size like Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, I think he’d have some major problems.
Inoue needs to fight better opposition than Nieves. This was a poor fight for the boxing fans to watch. Nieves didn’t have the talent, power or the defensive skills to hang with Inoue in this fight. It was hard to watch the fight due to how one-sided it was. Inoue needs to push his promoters to face WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai next. That’s a good match-up. Rungvisai has the punching power to give Inoue big problems. I’m not sure if Inoue’s management will want to make that fight.