Inoue opponent to announce news soon.
Throughout boxing history, there are countless examples of an all-time great fighter having difficulty with an opponent they were expected to dominate.
Muhammad Ali was knocked down by Doug Jones, Henry Cooper, and even officially by Chuck Wepner.
Larry Holmes mightily struggled with opponents such as Renaldo Snipes and Tim Witherspoon, and James ‘Bonecrusher’ Smith also posed him some issues.
The immortal Joe Louis was downed by Tony Galento, Buddy Baer, Jersey Joe Walcott, and famously by James J. Braddock.
Mike Tyson, when naming the toughest opponent he ever fought–in a career that included fights against Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield–neglected to mention any of his most famous foes, but gave the honour to Cuban gatekeeper Jose Ribalta.
It is always off-putting when a legendary figure struggles against someone he’s expected to demolish, but there’s a lot that goes into a bad performance.
A simple bad night at the office could be the explanation, or maybe it was a case of overlooking the unfancied opponent. Maybe, though, it comes down to that old axiom of “styles make fights”.
After all, Ali, Holmes, Louis, and Tyson destroyed far better opponents than the ones they had a hard time with.
But when Naoya Inoue–one of the pound-for-pound best in the world–was knocked down in the second round by Ramon Cardenas, it gave many pause.
Cardenas would be dropped and stopped himself later on in the fight, but that one knockdown he performed was enough to make many believe that Inoue might be slowing down.
Inoue’s fight with Cardenas arrived almost exactly a year after his fight with Luis Nery, in which he was dropped for the first time in his career. But unlike Nery, Cardenas was not a former two-weight world champion and didn’t even have a reputation for being that powerful.
Nonetheless, Cardenas displayed his power again in his very next fight, knocking Erik Robles out cold. Inoue, meanwhile, defended his undisputed championship two further times after the Cardenas fight and will be squaring off against Junto Nakatani in May.
Now Cardenas (27-2, 15 KOs) has revealed on his personal Twitter that he has some “good news” that he will be revealing “very, very soon”.
Whether this is a fight announcement or something else, Cardenas now has a lot more eyes on him than he ever would have had if he hadn’t have scored that knockdown against Naoya Inoue.
Got some good news!! Can’t wait to tell you guys very very soon!! 💪🏽
— Ramon Cardenas (@RamonDinamita) March 19, 2026
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