It's official: Inoue to challenge Fulton for unified junior featherweight title
Fight to take place on May 7 in Yokohama, Japan
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When Naoya Inoue vacated the undisputed bantamweight championship in mid-January he made his reason clear. The Japanese pound-for-pound star would move up to junior featherweight with one goal in mind — to win a world title in a fourth weight class.
Now he will have that chance.
“The Monster” Inoue, who is the face of boxing in Japan and a major star, will move up to 122 pounds and challenge WBC/WBO titleholder Stephen Fulton on May 7 at Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan, in an expected fight that was formally announced on Monday.
The fight, along with undercard bouts, will stream live in the United States on ESPN+ in the early morning of May 7, Top Rank announced. Streaming service Lemino will carry the fight in Japan.
The fight, perhaps the best so far this year on the schedule, will match one of the elite pound-for-pound fighters in the world in Inoue with the boxer widely considered No. 1 at junior featherweight in Fulton.
Inoue (24-0, 21 KOs), 29, who has also won world titles at junior bantamweight and junior flyweight, knocked out Paul Butler in the 11th round of a one-sided battering to take his WBO bantamweight title on Dec. 13 to fully unify the 118-pound division and become the first undisputed bantamweight champion of the three- or four-belt era and the first undisputed champion in the division in 50 years, since Panama’s Enrique Pinder unified the WBC and WBA belts during the two-belt era in 1972.
Going into the fight, Inoue, who is 19-0 with 17 knockouts in world title bouts, said it would be his final bout in the division and he reiterated it afterward, and then followed through by giving up the titles.
He had his eye on Fulton — and Fulton on Inoue — and their camps quickly began talks and hammered out a deal about two weeks ago that will send Fulton for his first fight outside of the U.S.
Fulton (21-0, 8 KOs), 28, of Philadelphia, handily outpointed Angelo Leo to win the WBO title in January 2021 and then claimed a disputed majority decision over Brandon Figueroa 10 months later to take his WBC title in an action-packed 2021 fight of the year contender. In his only fight since unifying, Fulton defended the belts by near-shutout decision over former unified titlist Daniel Roman this past June.
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This will be a great fight boxer against puncher who wins Fulton has a good chin lnoue moving up in weight does his punch go with him hard to pick at this stage
Great news. I love both of these guys. I’m leaning Fulton. Underrated, Philly, mobile, with enough speed and pop to make Inoue have to reset.
This fight reminds me of another fight between an underrated Philly champ against a rising destructive force whom everyone picked to dethrone the champ. That fight happened in the wake of 9/11 at MSG and remains a classic example of ring generalship and intelligence overcoming youth and power. I picked the Philly champ for that fight and will do so again for this one.