If you weren’t in a position to tune on this morning, you missed the fighter that many think about the #1 pound-for-pound on the planet legitimizes his case for that rating. Naoya Inoue was shifting up one other weight class and jumped straight into taking up the acknowledged champion Stephen Fulton Jr. Fulton a pure super-bantamweight was alleged to characterize an even bigger and stronger problem and take a look at Inoue’s abilities like by no means earlier than.
Besides, none of that occurred.
From the opening bell, Inoue confirmed that he was merely a step forward. Regardless of Fulton being the larger fighter, Inoue was in a position to negate Fulton’s jab, whereas dominating along with his personal. Along with his job a non-factor, Fulton struggled to create any actual offense. Because the rounds went on it felt prefer it was solely a matter of time till Inoue was ready to shut the present. Then within the eighth spherical, it occurred. Inoue stabbed Fulton within the physique with a jab, he jabbed to the physique once more, then on the third jab he adopted with a crushing proper hand that spelled doom for Fulton. Fulton’s legs have been wobbly, and his glove touched the canvas however it was a left hook that put him on the canvas. Fulton bought up, however a flurry of unanswered punches introduced a halt to the competition with 1:45 left to go in spherical eight. Along with his win, Inoue strikes to (25-0, 22KO’s) and picked up the WBC & WBO super-bantamweight titles. The victory made him a four-division champion, and solely the second Japanese fighter to perform that feat. Fulton drops to (21-1, 8KO’s) struggling his first-ever defeat.