Stephen Fulton is beaten badly by Naoya Inoue in a masterclass, which gives him all of the super bantamweight crowns.

The Japanese power puncher Naoya Inoue has been the subject of much acclaim for quite some time.

However, this is not a marketing ploy. This is the cold, harsh reality.

You can trust Inoue completely. We are privileged to witness one of the all-time greats, a man who possesses an unprecedented blend of speed, skill, intelligence, and power. 

On Tuesday, Inoue absolutely dominated previously unbeaten Stephen Fulton in Tokyo to win the WBC and WBO super bantamweight belts. Inoue dominated the fight from start to finish, winning all seven rounds by lopsided scores and knocking Fulton down in the eighth round at 1:14.

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Fulton was getting beat up badly, and the referee, Hector Afu, had to intervene to protect him.

Fulton was a world champion and undefeated contender who also had a size advantage coming into the battle.

However, Inoue downplayed his significance. The tremendous jab, brutal body work, exceptional speed, and absolute power that Inoue displayed were all on display. That's as good as it gets in terms of fighters. He has excellent boxing skills, can cut off the ring, is faster and quicker than his opponents, and can land punches like a man several weight classes higher. He has excellent distance control and confidently ascends and descends in height.

In the eighth, he knocked out Fulton for the first time with a straight right and left hook combination along the ropes. Inoue is one of the best finishers in the game, and Fulton managed to get up and stagger into a corner. He quickly dispatched of Fulton.

Inoue's record moved to 25-0, including 22 knockout victories, after the victory. It was his fourth world championship overall, following his junior flyweight, super flyweight, and bantamweight victories. After the battle, Marlon Tapales, the IBF and WBA champion, entered the ring, setting up a showdown for the undisputed title in November.

Tapales is a competent fighter, but he is no Fulton, and Fulton couldn't even come close to beating Inoue.

On Saturday, undefeated welterweights Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. will fight for the undisputed title and, theoretically, the mythical pound-for-pound championship, and the entire boxing world has converged on Las Vegas to watch.

Inoue, though, entered the bout as Yahoo Sports' No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter, behind Crawford, and he now wants to unseat Crawford. One of the greatest weeks in modern boxing history will be capped by a spectacular bout on Saturday if Crawford or Spence can match Inoue's brilliance. 

Inoue is one of the few boxers in history to accomplish so much. Twenty of his twenty-five professional fights have been for world titles, and he is undefeated (20-0, 18 KOs) in those bouts. When you stop to consider it, that fact is almost unbelievable.

And in a sport where it has always been difficult to unify belts, Inoue has actively sought out the most difficult competition. In December, he knocked out Paul Butler, the two-belt bantamweight champion, in 11 rounds.

Where did he go from there? He moved up to the 122-pound division to challenge Fulton, the finest fighter in that division. What did he do to Fulton, by the way? As a matter of fact, he utterly destroyed him. He completely outshone a rival who, like himself, was working toward a Hall of Fame career.

At the end of the bout, he challenged Tapales to a battle for the super bantamweight title this year.

How good Inoue is blows my mind.

Elite, excellent fighters like Nonito Donaire, a surefire future Hall of Famer, and Fulton have been devastated by him. To this day, no one has come close to challenging him. No one has ever even come close to matching his speed or absorbing his power.

It would be quite unlikely for him to compete at featherweight, but that might be his only option for really facing opponents. He has a modest build for someone who has grown to 122 pounds from his original 108.

But he decimated Fulton and will most likely crush Tapales as well.

What you're witnessing is a culmination of many eras' worth of artistic achievement. Following Tuesday's events in Tokyo, Crawford and Spence may meet this coming Saturday in Las Vegas to determine who will hold the second place pound-for-pound ranking.

Inoue had established a massive lead over the competition.

In the United States, where boxing fans have historically preferred the heavier competitors, his popularity has yet to truly take off. However, if you have even a passing interest in boxing, you owe it

to yourself to check this guy out.

A guy named Shohei Ohtani. Patrick Mahomes is his name. That guy is LeBron James.

In every respect, he is a global superstar.

Few boxers have been better in the sport's long history.

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