The endless speculation and suspense regarding the confirmation of a fight between former undisputed Bantamweight champion, Naoya Inoue, and current unified Super Bantamweight champion, Stephen Fulton has ended. The two have been officially scheduled to face each other on Sunday May 7th at the Yokohama Arena in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Having vacated his titles at Bantamweight to test his feet in the Junior Featherweight/Super Bantamweight division, the “Monster”, as Inoue is also known as, will face a crafty fighter in Stephen Fulton who’s advanced technical skills, ring IQ and grasp over the fundamentals has seen him remain undefeated while beating some of the best in his division. Though relatively unknown as an American fighter, the WBC & WBO champion has displayed an uncanny level of ability in the ring that has already reserved him a spot in the top 15 list of BoxRec’s pound-for-pound rankings. Though yet to crack the top 10 of The Ring’s pound-for-pound list, Fulton is undeniably already one of the best fighters of his generation.
In Fulton, Naoya Inoue finds a perfect match to test his prowess against. Not only is the Japanese Fighter of the Year willing to move up; Stephen Fulton is arguably better than the only other unified champion in the division, Uzbekistani Murodjon Akhmadaliev (11-0, 8 KO’s), who – like Fulton – is also undefeated but seems to lag a couple fights behind Fulton with him barely having fights over double-digits.
Despite just recently becoming undisputed in the Bantamweight division last December, Inoue has clearly set it in his mind to further challenge himself. Despite his spot on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list as the #2 best fighter on the planet, Naoya Inoue took great risks to face Fulton and will need to be at his very best to beat the American.
Stephen Fulton will also need to prepare himself accordingly, and though faced with much less pressure than the Japanese superstar, he will need to contend with fighting in Inoue’s home country while being considered the underdog, despite the two world titles in his possession. With Inoue already in form since his last completely dominant win over Paul Butler (34-3, 15 KO’s), Fulton will be facing an opponent that has been better than everyone he’s faced so far, even at 122 lbs where he’s been since making his debut in 2014.
With Inoue’s entire resume filled with either unanimous decisions or stoppages/knockouts, and betting odds tipping Inoue to win at -270 – while Fulton is a +200, Fulton seems to have a near-insurmountable task to overcome, but having never been devoid of confidence or skills, he has a decent chance of upsetting these odds and defeat the #2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
