From walking the streets of Philadelphia to having the world at his feet, Stephen Fulton Jr. is making his unique mark on the 122lb division.
Guided by Al Haymon and the PBC juggernaut, Fulton Jr. passed his biggest test with flying colours last May when he knocked down Paulus Ambunda and swept every round on all three scorecards en route to taking Ambunda's IBO super-bantamweight world championship. Despite his very impressive performance, Fulton Jr. looks back and thinks he could've done even more.
"I look back at it now and be like, 'I could've knocked him out'," the twenty-five year-old proclaimed. "I'm cool with the decision and cool with how things went, but now that I look back, I could've knocked him out (laughs). It was easier than I expected. I thought he would bring one of my toughest fights, but he barely hit me."
The moment he was crowned champion and heard those life-changing words, 'and the new', is something that will stay with him for life.
"I had my whole family there. It was a beautiful feeling at the time. (There) was a lot of enjoyment going through my body," he proudly recalled.
It's not only his family, but the entire fighting city of Philadelphia that he feels the love from. Philly fight fans have been spoiled throughout the decades with a multitude of world-class operators; the undefeated Fulton Jr. oozes confidence and hopes to not only defend his IBO world title, but add more belts to his collection and become a Philly fighting legend.
When I ask which champion he wishes to eventually share a ring with, he utters without a second's hesitation, "Danny Roman. I would stop him, I'll knock him out."
Roman is the current unified IBF and WBA 122lb world champion and Fulton Jr. explained to me in more detail as to why he's so confident he'd come out victorious.
"Because he's going to fight me back (laughs) and believe it or not, I don't think he's fought a guy like me yet," he said. "I fought people like him in the amateurs and the pros. I've had tough fights, I've been down before, I've (got) up and knocked my opponent out. He hasn't fought anybody like me and I know what I can bring to the table and what I'm going to bring to the table. Just imagine how much better I'm going to be by the time I fight him. And I'm one of the biggest in the weight-class."
Speaking about size, earlier this year I spoke to the now 17-0 super-bantamweight world champion about the possibility of moving up to featherweight and it's still something he would like to naturally move towards in the future, just not yet. 'Scooter' reiterated his desire to collect more championships at 122lbs. "I want to get some more belts down here first. It's all about timing. I'm comfortable where I'm at."
Fulton Jr. hopes to be in action next January with an opponent yet to be confirmed. Following his win on the undercard of Brandon Figueroa's victory over Javier Nicolas Chacon in August, the two undefeated pugilists look set on a collision course. Fulton Jr. has already, incredibly, beaten six undefeated prospects and hopes the interim WBA titleholder will be his seventh unbeaten victim. Although he has doubts Figueroa actually wants to trade leather.
"Yeah, we're going to set that up, but I think something's going to pull him back from the fight or something like that."
Fulton Jr.'s win on that card in August was a display of excellent defensive skill mixed with punch-picking of the highest quality. A sixth-round left-hook to the body kept the then undefeated, Isaac Avelar down for the count.
"It felt good because I felt his body when I hit him," he explained. "When I hit him and took that first step back - I knew I had him but then when he started going down, in my mind I'm like, 'I got him'. I jumped back and tried to hit him with another hook, (but) he's already going down. When I looked at his face, I knew he wasn't getting up. Imagine he's going to have to deal with that and some more. I still had fresh legs, I wasn't tired, I had all that energy. He'd have had to go through way more punishment. He did the right thing by staying down."
Somewhat surprisingly, two of the judges had Avelar winning the bout at the time of the stoppage and Fulton Jr. felt the odds were unfairly stacked against him.
"I was all the way out of my element. They wanted to make me uncomfortable. It was nothing but Mexicans, Mexican ref etc. The fight was kind of made for him to win. I feel as though they had me losing and I went all the way over to Texas and he's like ten minutes from there. It's kind of his home town basically."
2019 was Stephen Fulton Jr.'s breakout year; expect 2020 to be even bigger.
