Stephen Fulton (22-1, 8 KOs) will challenge WBC interim featherweight champion Brandon Figueroa (25-1-1, 19 KOs) in a rematch on the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Lamont Roach Jr. undercard on December 14th at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The event is expected to be shown on PBC on Prime Video PPV.
Fulton, 30, defeated Figueroa two years ago by a 12-round majority decision on November 27, 2021, in a unification fight at Super Bantamweight in Las Vegas. Figueroa lost his WBC 122-lb title to WBO champion Fulton in that contest.
Brandon Figueroa’s advantages:
– Power
– Aggression
– Youth
– Chin
Figueroa is in the prime of his career at 27, and his youth, will, and power may prove to be too much for ‘Cool Boy Steph’ Fulton, who doesn’t look like the same fighter he was three years ago when he fought Brandon in 2021.
The Philadelphia native Fulton’s eighth-round knockout loss to ‘Monster’ Naoya Inoue in may have diminished his punch resistance. Inoue knocked some chips out of Fulton in their fight last year in July 2023.
It was a fight that easily could have gone the other way, as Figuera had landed the harder and the cleaner shots throughout. The judges scored it as follows:
– 116-112 – Fulton
– 116-112 – Fulton
– 114-114
Fulton recently moved up to 126 after losing his WBC and WBO super bantamweight titles in an eighth-round knockout defeat against Naoya Inoue on July 25th, 2023, in Tokyo.
In Fulton’s debut at featherweight, he edged Carlos Castro by a 10-round split decision last month on September 14th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The heavy-handed Castro dropped Fulton in the fifth round but came back to outwork the tiring fighter in the second half of the contest. It was not an impressive performance by Fulton, who showed that his punch resistance might not be up to the mark for the 126-lb division, and he lacks the power to dominate in this weight class as he’d done at 122. Fulton is ranked #1 WBA, #3 WBO, and #4 WBC at featherweight.
Figueroa has looked a lot better in his recent fight since moving up to featherweight, beating fighters:
– Jesse Magdaleno – TKO 9 last May
– Mark Magsayo – UD 12 in March 2023
– Carlos Castro – TKO 6 in July 2022
Should Fulton Move Back Down to 122?
If Stephen Fulton loses the rematch to Figueroa by a knockout, he needs to consider moving back down to super bantamweight because he doesn’t punch hard enough to be a top-flight contender at 126. Moreover, many powerful fighters at featherweight will take advantage of Fulton’s weak chin and do the same thing to him that Inoue did.
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