Ramon Cardenas managed to score what looked like could’ve been a show-stopping knockdown of Naoya Inoue early in their fight, but ultimately Inoue managed to rally back to score an eighth round stoppage. Speaking directly after the loss, Cardenas says he obviously wish he would’ve won the fight but doesn’t feel bad about his performance because his goal has always been to fight the best in the sport, not just maintain an unblemished record.
Cardenas on his reaction to the TKO loss to Inoue
“I feel good. I lost but I don’t feel defeated ‘cause ultimately, I said this, I never said I was going to retire undefeated or be an undefeated fighter. I never once wanted that. I always wanted to fight the best…win, lose or draw, fight the best. You lose versus the best or you beat the best.”
On looking to work his way back to another world title opportunity
“I mean, that’s the plan. My promoter, my manager, everybody’s happy…for me, I’m more content than anything because it’s all about the best fighting the best, win, lose or draw. I went out on my shield, I’m not ashamed of losing ‘cause I went out on my shield.”
On if he thought he was going to stop Inoue after dropping him hard
“No, for me it was more ‘continue the fight’ because he’s pound-for-pound, man. He’s a f-ckin’ great fighter and I knew he was going to continue the fight. When you’re a tough fighter like that you’re not going to just go out like that. Just like me, I would get hit with six, seven shots or I’d have my guard up and I’d smile because I’m not going to go out like that.”
On if he thinks the stoppage was fair
“I will never badmouth the ref for doing what he’s doing or what he did. He saw something that I didn’t, I’m never going to say ‘that was a premature stoppage.’ The ref saw something that I didn’t. I know that I’ll go out on my shield no matter what. My favorite movie is The Gladiator, right, and there’s a quote I always post on my social media and it goes ‘I knew a man who once said death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.’ That’s how I see this fight, that’s how I see boxing.”
