Naoya Inoue retained his undisputed super-bantamweight world championship as TJ Doheny crumbled with an injury at the start of their seventh round.
Inoue is a modern great, joining Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk as one of the three men active today to become two-weight, four-belt undisputed champions.
The accomplishments speak for him anyway, but so too has the blazing style of his performances. After going undisputed at bantamweight he swept through Stephen Fulton and Marlon Tapales to rapidly unify the WBA, WBO, WBC and IBF world titles at 122lbs.
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But against Doheny, Inoue was denied the highlight reel finish he has become accustomed to.
"Probably this fight didn't end the way that you expected," Inoue said afterwards. "I think it was more the accumulation of damage that I gave to him.
"I know boxing is not easy so I really wanted to be slowing down, doing one [round] at a time, giving my opponent damage."
Doheny is a former world champion and a big southpaw and gave Inoue, who was dropped in his last fight by Luis Nery before he secured a knockout win, some problems initially in the contest.
But Inoue soon found solutions. He ramped up the pressure, smacking arrow-straight crosses into Doheny. He worked the body viciously and was grinding Doheny down.
The Irishman was feeling those assaults as Inoue closed out the sixth round strongly. Inoue maintained that to begin the seventh and he cracked Doheny with a left hook to the body among an assortment of punches.
Doheny suddenly pulled up 16 seconds into the seventh round, clutching his back, and had to withdraw injured.
"You can expect more from me in the future," Inoue insisted afterwards.
"To all the fans around the world thank you so much for watching this fight. This is not everything that I have, I still have a long way to go.
"I am still in progress and today's match I want to celebrate especially how TJ Doheny brought the fight into this ring and his career."
Inoue is expected to fight in Japan later this year, making another defence of his undisputed super-bantamweight world title before a potential date in America in 2025.
Promoter Bob Arum said: "I understand he'll be coming back here to Tokyo to defend his title again at the end of the year and then we're taking him to the United States for a big celebration in Las Vegas."
Undercard action
Yoshiki Takei, in just his 10th professional fight, managed to retain his WBO bantamweight world title after a frenetic 12-round battle with Daigo Higa.
Higa kept the champion under intense pressure. He worked his way forward on the front foot and connected with thumping hooks when he trapped Takei on the ropes.
Takei moved well when he put his footwork to use but too often stood to trade with Higa and had to endure shots from his challenger blasting through a too-open guard.
At long range, he forced hurtful uppercuts into Higa, but looked in trouble when he lost his footing beneath another hook and had the first knockdown of his professional career scored against him.
He threw everything at Higa in the 12th and final round, jolting his challenger back with an onslaught of punches. He needed that big finish to take a close but unanimous decision, 115-112 and 114-113 twice.
On the undercard, Andy Hiroaka served notice that he will be a threat in the super-lightweight division when he halted Ismael Barroso in the ninth round of their WBA title eliminator.
Barroso might be 41 years old but remained dangerous, demonstrating that in his last fight in January when he demolished Britain's Ohara Davies in a single round.
Hiraoka scored his first knockdown in the sixth round, a tangle of their legs seeing Barroso tumble over. But if that was a questionable call, there could be no doubt about how he put Barroso away in the ninth.
He smashed the Venezuelan with an arching left and hammered Barroso down to a knee with a follow-up attack.
Another left shook Barroso up and Hiraoka floored him for a second time in the round.
The Venezuelan just beat the count, but his corner withdrew him.
Jin Sasaki also caught the eye when he took out Qamil Balla with a leaping left hook.
More hard-hitting boxing action will be coming up later this month when Anthony Joshua fights Daniel Dubois on September 21 live on Sky Sports Box Office.
