Cardenas then flipped the entire fight in the second round. After showing more aggression and forcing Inoue backward early in the round, Cardenas took advantage of Inoue's attempt to return the aggression and landed a left hook counter, dropping Inoue to the canvas in a shocking moment.

Naoya Inoue won the competition battle. But Ramon Cardenas won the perception war. The rugged but comprehensively unheralded Texan scored a shocking knockdown in the second round and gave nearly as good as he got for several more before finally crumbling under the pound-for-pound star’s perpetual wrath in Round 8 of a scheduled 12.