LAS VEGAS – If it was a fashion statement Stephen Fulton Jnr was after in his choice of ring attire for Saturday’s featherweight title fight and rematch with Brandon Figueroa, it was a swing and a miss.
Fulton stepped through the ropes wearing what appeared to be modified cutoff jeans, wool socks and Timberlands, which might have been appropriate for a hike through nearby Red Rock Canyon but turned out only to be a harbinger for a brutally ugly title fight.
But Fulton connected on the main objective, claiming a unanimous decision and a featherweight belt by scores of 116-112, 117-111 in the co-main event supporting the David Benavidez-David Morrell Jnr headliner at T-Mobile Arena.
To be fair, it was Figueroa, not Fulton, who mostly dragged Saturday’s fight into the muck. It’s a shame, too, because their first showdown – at junior featherweight back in November 2021 – was an unqualified banger. They combined for nearly 2,000 punches, many of them clean and powerful, and Fulton snuck away with a majority decision.
There was no sneaking on Saturday – just something that vaguely resembled octopus sumo wrestling. Figueroa spent the majority of the fight leaning forward, closing the distance, draping a long arm over Fulton or pinning an elbow to his chest. Was the idea to come up with a different strategy than the one he employed in the defeat to Fulton in their first fight? If it was, it only gave away Figueroa’s natural length advantage and smothered anything productive he might have gotten off to produce a different result.
“I feel like he didn’t let enough shots go like he normally would, and I feel like he kind of slowed down,” Fulton, 25-1-1 (19 KOs), said of Figueroa. “He moved up to 126lbs. As you see, his punch output lowered from when we was at 122lbs, and I feel like I capitalized off of that. I used my jab, I listened to my corner.”
What he didn’t do was attempt to push the action much. Instead, Fulton latched on to Figueroa’s errant arms, tied up anything threatening and waited for rare openings to appear. When he found them, Fulton did manage to unleash quality uppercuts that stung but never stopped Figueroa, 22-1 (8 KOs), of Weslaco, Texas. The chorus of boos after the sixth round and again at the end of the fight were the only noise heard from those in attendance for 36 minutes of non-action.
What’s next for Philadelphia’s Fulton is uncertain, but he isn’t letting the funk from Saturday’s stinker ruin a favorable outcome.
“Just enjoy the victory while I can,” he said of the future. “I’m living in a moment right now and not overlooking anything. I’m just going to focus on this and maybe next month and we’ll weigh our options.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at and followed on and .