#stephen fulton

Disclaimer: I apologize for the audio on my end being weird, unfortunately it was an issue with my laptop and not something I could fix with an edit

We said if Spence Vs Crawford ever happened we would dust off these microphones and hop back in the Dojo so here we are! On this episode @theanticool and I break down Spence Vs Crawford, Naoya Inoue's amazing performance against fulton, the rematch of Dustin Poirier Vs Justin Gaethje and we even talk some Bellator Vs Rizin 2. So sit back and enjoy the episode. Thanks for your support!

Time Stamps

00:00 - Intro 15:50 - Crawford Vs Spence 42:18 - Inoue Vs Fulton 01:30:00 - UFC 291 01:46:12 - Bellator Vs Rizin 2 02:04:40 - Upcoming Fights/Outro

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Naoya Inoue vs Stephen Fulton | July 25, 2023

Stephen Fulton vs Brandon Figueroa 1 - November 27, 2021

We got a big rematch this week!

Sadly, most boxing fans overlook Stephen Fulton (22-1) fantastic run at super bantamweight before running into Naoya Inoue. He had an amazing run of beating the likes of Angelo Leo, Daniel Roman, and Brandon Figueroa. He has since bounced back from that Inoue lost and moved up to featherweight (126lbs) with a win over Carlos Castro last September. A rather hard fought one that saw him come off the floor.

Brandon Figueroa (25-1-1, 19 KOs) took the 2021 lost to Fulton in stride, deciding to move up to featherweight. Sadly, he's only averaged a fight a year since but they've all been wins. He's beaten Carlos Castro, Mark Magsayo, and Jessie Magdaleno. He's the interim WBC featherweight champion and is looking to finally get that official title with a revenge win over Fulton.

Inoue took apart Fulton over the course of 8 rounds. The generous read was the fight was 6-1 Inoue heading into the 8th. But it was all Inoue.The jab was accurate, damaging, and disruptive. It set the tone all night as he used an up-jab to break through the guard of Fulton. It was thudding. And it forced Fulton to either reset or back out of exchanges, giving Inoue a runway to follow up. When Fulton did try to jab with Inoue, Inoue did an amazing job of getting the inside angle and basically letting Fulton leap into a stiff short jab. It was great. But the thing that really stole this fight for Inoue was the body jab. From basically the 2nd round on, Inoue was landing that jab at will. Fulton didn’t offer much resistance. He attempted to counter the body jab once with a chopping right hand but Inoue immediately countered by hooking off the body jab. Extremely beautiful stuff. I think Inoue landed something like 20 body jabs over the course of the first 7 rounds. The killing blow was set up by a jab to the gut that forces Fulton to drop the lead hand. That provided the hole for the right hand to finally land flush on Fulton. It completely rocked him. He tried to stay up (both gloves seemed to have touched the ground) as he ran to the corner but Inoue followed it and landed a sweeping left hook that floored Fulton. He beat the count but was instantly stormed to the post where Inoue flurried and the ref called the fight as Fulton fell to his butt.

One of my worries for Fulton heading into this fight was Inoue’s speed and skill in open space. While his wins over Figueroa, Leo and Roman were impressive, none of them are Inoue stylistically. The idea was that Fulton was a fleet footed lateral movement based fighter that could theoretically keep Inoue at range with his size and lean on him when it came time to get on the inside, smothering the smaller fighter’s work. Neither of those things happened. Turns out, Roman is not analogous to Inoue. I’m actually curious if Fulton’s all terrain nature kind of bit him on the ass here. We’ve seen fighters who are willing to meet their opponents at the range/pace they want struggle when they have to be the setter. Cause Fulton was content sitting in a bladed stance at middle distance with Inoue, probably a terrible idea for basically anyone. The lateral movement we had seen basically didn’t exist as Inoue didn’t really pressure and Fulton didn’t try to make him chase. When Fulton did move, it was purely defensive. There were a couple times between rounds 5 and 7 where Fulton would land something meaningful, usually off of subtle half steps disguised by his own jab. But he could not build off it. And while Fulton is the bigger fighter, he’s not more aggressive. He’s not a pressure fighter himself who was going to use his size to bully around Inoue. And that definitely wasn’t going to happen after the first couple of clinch exchanges. Inoue did a great job of punching in the tie ups. One time an illegal uppercut after pushing Fulton’s head from the front headlock position (dope af tbh). Another a series of right hands after Fulton lept in behind the jab and got his arm trapped on the shoulder of Inoue. Inoue was just the better inside fighter.

I feel bad because Fulton is a great fighter. Like legitimately great. He’s beaten most of the top of the 122lb division. He’s tough as hell. Been in wars with some tough fighters. He takes the tough fights fans say they want to see. He earned those two world titles. He went over to Tokyo in an attempt to do something legitimately amazing, challenging, and career-defining. He does all the things you want high level prizefighters to do but he just came up against a once in a generation type fighter in his prime. And it’s a shame that I don’t have more positive things to say about him in this fight, but that is just a testament to how great Inoue is and how much he dominated this fight. I definitely underestimated Inoue in a few respects. The power more than carried. He didn’t look that much smaller than Fulton either. His fighting in the tie ups was way better than I thought it was.

Stephen Fulton vs Brandon Figueroa - Nov 27, 2021

Stephen Fulton (21-0) is one of America’s most overlooked boxers. Despite being a champion at super bantamweight and having bounced like 3 of the top 5 or so fighters in the division, Fulton doesn’t get much respect - from fans or journalists. But he’s got a plan to fix that. He’s headed to Tokyo!