WBO welterweight champion, Terence Crawford, has predicted next Tuesday’s unified super-bantamweight title clash between Stephen Fulton and Naoya Inoue.
Fulton is regarded as the best natural 122lber on the planet after becoming world champion in 2021 and then unifying the WBO and WBC titles in a majority decision win over Brandon Figueroa later that year.
Since then, he has made one defence of the unified belts, outpointing Daniel Roman thirteen months ago, but faces his toughest task to date by taking on Japanese phenomenon, Inoue, next week.
‘The Monster’ began his career as a light-flyweight and has become a three-division world champion whilst establishing himself as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters and punchers in recent years.
He claimed the undisputed bantamweight crown back in December, and now seeks to conquer his fourth weight-class by jumping in at the deep end against the American.
In an interview with Fight Hype, ‘Bud’ Crawford predicted a victory for his countryman due to his physical advantage as well as his skillset.
“I’m leaning towards Fulton, I hope he can bring it [the unified title] back to the United States, I hope he can go out there and do good and I wish him well.”
“I think that it’s going to be a tough fight for both fighters and that the better man is going to win on that day. I just think that Fulton is the bigger, stronger guy.
Not only is he bigger and stronger but he has skills too, it’s one thing where a lot of people say ‘well this guy is big, this guy is strong’ but skills pay the bills and Floyd [Mayweather] proved that. Fulton has got the skills to back up his size as well.”
Fulton will make this second defence of his unified belts on Tuesday July 25 at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, in an event that can be watched live on Sky Sports for UK viewers and ESPN+ in the US.