Fighter Floyd Mayweather made cry with brutal KO suffers huge upset loss in world title fight
After Junto Nakatani recently opted to relinquish his IBF and WBC world titles, a vacant WBC title fight between Tenshin Nasukawa and Takuma Inoue was ordered.
Nasukawa has a long history of competing in kickboxing where he was a world champion in RIZIN, and is often regarded as one of the best kickboxers ever.
Despite his dominance in that sport, he opted to make the switch to boxing in 2023, and went on an impressive run of seven wins in a row, immediately putting himself into title contention.
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Takuma Inoue, the younger brother of consensus pound-for-pound number one boxer on the planet, Naoya Inoue was looking to bounce back from his WBA world title loss last time out.
Inoue scores huge upset win over Nasukawa
Although this was only Nasukawa’s eighth professional boxing fight, he had already shared the ring with one of the greatest fighters ever, Floyd Mayweather, when the two squared off in an exhibition fight in 2018.
Their bizarre clash in Japan was one of the first high profile crossover fights in the sport, and in some ways, it opened up the door for the crossovers that have since followed.
Even though it was only an exhibition fight, ‘Money’ Mayweather went on to knock Tenshin out in the first round as he toyed with him and laughed at him throughout, resulting in the Japanese fighter crying at the end of the fight.
Despite being most well-known for his kickboxing background, Tenshin came into the fight as a huge favorite on the betting odds, considering his recent dominance in the sport.
However, early in the fight, it was Inoue who had the better of the exchanges and looked to be the more comfortable fighter in the matchup.
Having trained with his brother throughout his camp, his patient approach began to pay dividends as he landed big counter punches on Tenshin, who just couldn’t mount much of an attack.
After a largely tentative 12 rounds in which Inoue edged in the majority, he was awarded the unanimous decision victory and was crowned the new WBC bantamweight world champion, handing Inoue his first ever professional loss.
Inoue almost retired before fight
Despite joining his brother as a world champion, before his fight against Tenshin, Inoue almost retired from the sport.
Following his world title loss to Seiya Tsutsumi last time out, the 29-year-old contemplated retirement as he was unsure that he could rebound to become a world champion again.
