Naoya Inoue is called "The Monster" for a reason and he more than showed why Tuesday.
After chipping away at Stephen Fulton for seven rounds, Inoue stab-jabbed the American to the body, changed levels and rocked him with a right across the jaw and dropped him flat on his back with a stunning left hook.
As Fulton rose off the mat in a world of pain, Inoue unloaded an onslaught of violence in the form of unanswered punches to record an eighth-round TKO to become the new unified WBC and WBO junior featherweight world champion in front of his home crowd inside the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
"Everything I was thinking about was to fight [Fulton] this year," Inoue said in the ring following his electric performance.
With the victory, Inoue improves to 25-0 with 22 KOs, snatching two key pieces on his new quest to become super bantamweight world champion. He also hands Fulton (21-1, 8 KOs) his first loss.
Inoue essentially made the victory look easy, quickly asserting his jab with pop early and using it to piece together multiple combinations that Fulton didn't have any answers for. This came despite Inoue being the smaller man who had to move up in weight.
As the rounds went on, Inoue's firepower only got stronger as he started to drown Fulton out with activity and prisinely-placed power punches until he decided on the opportune time to strike toward an eighth-round stoppage.
Here's how the entire Inoue-Fulton main card went.