Naoya Inoue KOs Marlon Tapales in Boxing Fight to Become 2x Undisputed Champion

Naoya Inoue has staked his claim as the world's best pound-for-pound boxer with a knockout victory over Marlon Tapales on Tuesday to become a two-division undisputed champion.

The finish came 62 seconds into the 10th round when Inoue hit a left-right combination that dropped Tapales down to his knees. Tapales was unable to answer the referee's 10 count to end the fight.

Inoue, who entered the bout as the WBC and WBO super-bantamweight champion, added the WBA, IBF, and vacant The Ring super-bantamweight titles to his resume.

Inoue became the undisputed bantamweight champion in December 2022 when he defeated Paul Butler via TKO. He moved up to super-bantamweight earlier and had a successful 122-pound debut by defeating Stephen Fulton for the WBC and WBO titles.

The victory set up Inoue for a showdown with Tapales, who won the WBA and WBO super-bantamweight championships with a victory over Murodjon Akhmadaliev in April.

Per CompuBox, 114 of the 146 strikes landed by Inoue were power punches. Tapales only connected on a total of 52 punches.

Inoue wasted no time taking control of the bout. He landed 47 percent of his power strikes in the first two rounds, including nine in the second round. Tapales was knocked down in the fourth round following a hard left and a flurry of punches.

Tapales did a good job of bouncing back after the initial knockdown. His best round was the fifth when he landed 12 power punches on Inoue, but there was never a moment when it looked like the Monster was in any danger.

The loss was Tapales' first since December 2019 when Ryosuke Iwasa beat him by TKO for the vacant IBF super-bantamweight championship.

Inoue is showing no signs of slowing down now. He has won each of his 26 professional fights, with 23 victories coming via knockout or TKO.

The Japanese superstar has joined Terence Crawford as the only male boxers in history to be the undisputed champion in two different weight classes.