Stephen Fulton Jr. thinks boxing fans and reporters have read too much into Nayoa Inoue’s knockout ratio when assessing their upcoming 122-pound title fight.
Fulton contended that he hits harder than his eight knockouts indicate during an interview with Showtime’s Brian Custer. Regardless, the undefeated Fulton feels that his intelligence and skills will be more than enough to conquer Inoue in the three-division champion’s home country of Japan.
Neither a date nor a venue have been finalized for Fulton-Inoue, but Fulton has acknowledged that he will take that transpacific trip sometime this spring for what will be the biggest fight of his eight-year pro career.
“I feel like I’m just gonna show swag in this fight, show style, show class,” Fulton told Custer during a recent episode of his “Last Stand Podcast,” which is available on YouTube. “I feel like I’m gonna out-class him. I feel like the power’s not gonna matter to me. The power may matter to the fans, because they lookin’ at the records. But who have he fought of my significance, of my style? Who has he fought? We seen everyone comes forward to him and try and dog him out, and then get hit with some crazy shots. You never seen someone [against Inoue] who can mix it up like me. I have a style for every fighter. And it shows.”
The unbeaten Inoue is 24-0, including 21 knockouts. The 29-year-old superstar became boxing’s first fully unified bantamweight champion of the four-belt era by knocking out England’s Paul Butler (34-3, 15 KOs) in the 11th round of his most recent bout, but he will move up four pounds to challenge Fulton for the Philadelphia native’s WBC and WBO 122-pound championships.
The 28-year-old Fulton, meanwhile, has knocked out only 38 percent of his pro opponents (21-0, 8 KOs). Each of Fulton’s past four fights have gone the 12-round distance, including a majority-decision victory over Brandon Figueroa (23-1-1, 18 KOs) in what was one of boxing’s best action fights of 2021.
“Power don’t just win fights,” Fulton said. “I’m smart. How you think I got here? My skills, my mindset, my speed, my slickness. And guess what? Everybody say I don’t got power until they get in there, and these guys is not fighting everybody how they used to fight these guys. So, I feel like you can’t speak on power when everyone wear them eight-ounce gloves, everyone has power. You feel every punch.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.