Naoya Inoue rallies to retain undisputed junior featherweight title - ESPN

Naoya Inoue suffered the first knockdown of his illustrious career in the opening round but rebounded to floor Luis Nery three times en route to a Round 6 KO victory to retain his undisputed junior featherweight championship on Monday in Tokyo.

There were 44,000-plus on hand for the first boxing event at the famed Tokyo Dome since the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas heavyweight title shocker in February 1990. And those fans witnessed another surprise when Mexico's Nery dropped the Japanese star with a counter right hand in Round 1.

Inoue, the -1600 favorite per ESPN BET, smirked and breathed a sigh of relief as he walked back to his corner. «How did you like that big surprise in the first round?» the 31-year-old asked the crowd in Japanese. "… That happening gave me motivation and I was so focused until the end of the fight."

The following round, Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs) returned the favor with a counter left hook, the fifth knockdown of Nery's career. Inoue, ESPN's No. 2 pound-for-pound boxer, slapped his gloves together as the referee counted.

«The Monster» deposited Nery on the canvas with another left hook in Round 5. Then in Round 6, Inoue backed up Nery (35-2, 27 KOs) and delivered a sharp right hand that sent the challenger's head crashing onto the bottom rope as the referee halted the bout without a count at 1:22.

Ahead of Monday's fight, the Japan Boxing Commission reinstated Nery's boxing license after he was indefinitely suspended in March 2018. The ban was handed down following Nery's pair of stoppage wins over Japan's longtime champion Shinsuke Yamanaka.

Nery scored a fourth-round TKO win over Yamanaka to capture the WBC bantamweight title in August 2017, but was suspended afterward when the banned substance