Stephen Fulton vs Naoya Inoue fight breakdown
The “Cool Boy” faces a “Monster” in the Land of the Rising Sun
Unified champ Stephen “Cool Boy Steph” Fulton (21-0, 8KO) confidently makes a 1350-mile round trip to Japan to defend his WBC and WBO World super-bantamweight titles to “Monster” Naoya Inoue (24-0, 21KO) on Tuesday, July 25.
The Japanese challenger is making his super-bantamweight debut as he continues to chase greatness after becoming undisputed at bantamweight in his last fight. The triple champion is aiming to conquer a fourth weight class against the unbeaten American champion, who has graciously travelled for this fight.
Inoue may have the home advantage in the Ariake Arena in Koto-Ku, but he will be giving up size, reach and height advantages to the Philadelphian fighter.
Fulton is a career super-bantamweight, all 21 bouts have been fought at 122lbs during his nine-year career. He first became a world champion with the IBO in 2019, then added the WBO and WBC belts in separate fights in 2021. He is currently 4-0 in world championship contests.
The Pennsylvanian was a Golden Gloves champion in 2013, turning pro in 2014 after accumulating an impressive 75-15 record. He also participated in three bouts for the USA Knockouts in the Word Series Boxing, coming out with a 2-1 record.
Fulton is a defensive, incredibly elusive fighter. He possesses sublime feet, a sound judgement of range, fluid upper body and head movement, quick hands and a decent ring IQ. His reflexes and timing are supreme skills of his.
He lacks power as more of a backfoot puncher, who doesn’t commit or load up on shots. His ability to land sneaky shots is reminiscent of Floyd Mayweather, especially when he displays his pull-back counters. Not only is he hard to pin down, he is also a busy boxer and will outland his opponents by almost double the shots if he gets into his stride.
In his last fight with Daniel Roman, he put on a boxing clinic, he was like a ghost during the entire contest, evading all attacks, until he decided to sit in the pocket, hold his feet and trade in the championship rounds, taking a few shots back, but still won every round on two judges’ scorecards.
During his exciting 2021 unification clash with undefeated Brandon Figueroa, it was completely different as he was placed under immense pressure by the Texan, who was aggressively looking to finish the fight in more than one of the rounds, but the overall mixed decision was awarded to Fulton after a high-paced, 12-round back and forth battle. It was the “Heartbreaker” who was heartbroken after that fight, you could see his disappointment and disagreement with the decision, asking Fulton to his face in the post-fight ring interview if he truly believed he had won the fight telling his rival that he had him hurt five-six times. He landed more punches – 314 – on Fulton than anyone else. The winner landed 45 punches less but was far more economical and eyecatching. Fulton showed his warrior mentality
Against Inoue, he will be placed under intense pressure again, but by a much bigger puncher with 21 knockouts from 24 fights.
The 5’5” pint sized powerhouse weighed in for his professional debut in 2012 at just 108lbs! He became Japanese light-flyweight champion in only his fourth fight and world champion in his fifth, just one and half years into his pro career.
He bypassed flyweight and won his second world title at super-fly in 2014, then he defeated Brit Jamie McDonnell in 2014 for the WBA bantamweight belt to become a three-weight world champion. During 2018-2019, he KO’d his way to the World Boxing Super Series final against Nonito Donaire which was named 2019 ESPN Fight of the Year for it’s thrilling back and forth battles. In that epic bout, Inoue fractured his eye socket and felt pain throughout the bout but showed his mettle to win by unanimous decision. When they met in the ring again, over two years later, the ageing “Filipino Flash” was halted in two brutal rounds by the powerful youngster.
The 30-year-old has won his last five fights by KO, but it took 11 rounds to get rid of pesky Liverpudlian Paul Butler in his last fight in December. “The Baby Faced Assassin” was extremely negative and unambitious, which is way it took over half an hour to break him down. But in round 11, he found the accurate body shot he is so well known for delivering to his opponents to end the fight which was more like a sparring session for him. And with that win, he became the first ever undisputed bantamweight champion in a four-belt era.
And now he turns his attention to creating more boxing history in a fourth weight class, but this is set to be one of his hardest tests yet. WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman believes this will be the hardest fight of his career due to the step up in weight against The Ring Magazine’s No.1 bantamweight. It’s a quality match-up between size and skill vs power and pressure.
Betting Odds
The visiting foreigner, Fulton, is the outsider to win at 12/5 with Betway Sports, while local lad Inoue is favourite to win at home at 1/3. Odds for a draw are currently low at 14/1.
Predictions
Inoue fights with his gloves slightly lower than his chin and a sharp, reactive puncher like Fulton could land some clean jabs during this bout.
Inoue will be straight on the front foot to stalk and walk Fulton down, who will naturally go on the back foot, with intentions to counter such a volume-puncher who loads up on his shots.
This pair could share equal blows, but one will have a much bigger effect than the other. Inoue is coming up from bantam, but to question whether he will carry his power upwards after accumulating an 87.5% KO ratio and stopping his last five opponents in a row, should answer itself.
Naoya may walk onto a few and he may take some time to get to Fulton to break him down, but he isn’t sharing the ring with a big puncher, so he should be able to weather any storms to get in close and land his wide variety of power punches to head and body. The Japanese “Monster” is always getting into position to land big punches and his power stays with him for every round of the fight. 36 minutes is a long time for “Cool Boy Steph” to stay elusive and avoid that prodigious power which is switched on at full dial from round one to round 12.
Verdict: Inoue to win by TKO after the mid-rounds.
