“He’s corny to me,” said Stephen Fulton, who holds the WBC and WBO at the super bantamweight division on the PBC Podcast in regards to Ra’eese Aleem. “To the media and the casual boxing fans, yea, he may be nice to them but to me, he’s corny to me.”
Aleem, who recently got a ten-round decision over Mike Plania, on September 4th, on FS1, as part of the Andy Ruiz Jr. vs Luis Ortiz PPV undercard. After the bout, Aleem called out Fulton, and with Luis Nery fighting in October, M.J. Akhmadaliev targeting a mandatory defense against Marlon Tapales, virtually no other fight makes sense for Fulton in the near future.
So if the two don’t fight, the 28-year-old prizefighter, Fulton would only fight once in 2022, which is a shame as he is one of the best 20 fighters in the world. This would mark an alarming trend of great fighters not fighting all that often, as Jermell Charlo became an undisputed world champion over Brian Castano earlier this year, and is unofficially set to return in January of 2023, which is just one fight in all of last year.
It is clear that Fulton is targeting M.J. Akhmadaliev, who has the WBA and IBF world titles, but we’re unsure how long it will take for Akhmadaliev to get cleared to fight him, as his voluntary defense was used last year when he fought Jose Velasquez, last year when Ronny Rios contracted COVID-19 and was unable to face him.
“I just turned 28, I already walk around 145 or more. My body ain’t gonna be able to keep getting down in weight. That’s why I’m not so quick to fight somebody that's not going to bring anything to me like Aleem and Luis Nery. What am I getting out of fighting them right now? I'm in talks for undisputed and Inoue. If they was in my shoes, they wouldn't be so quick to fight somebody that ain’t got nothing to offer for them.”
The disheartening news, a blue-collar guy like Aleem, seeming has no other options, but to fight who is in front of him, as Fulton seems uninterested in making this bout, and seemingly hinted at leaving the division potentially soon, in the statement listed above.
