By: Sean Crose
Showtime is offering a very interesting super bantamweight title fight this evening as the 20 – 0 Stephen Fulton takes on the 29-3-1 Daniel Roman for the WBC and WBO divisional world titles. The fight is the main event of a televised card that will will go down at the Armory in Minneapolis and will be broadcast live starting at 9:00 PM eastern time. The Roman-Fulton match is important not only for the titles at stake, but because the winner will hold two of the four major divisional belts. The other two – the IBF and WBA – belong to Murodjon Akhmadaliev, who removed Roman of those belts in 2020.
“The winner of this fight,” says Fulton, who has the greatest nickname in the history of professional sports (Cool Boy Steph), “needs to go for undisputed…once we take care of this fight, hopefully we go for undisputed next.” Yet Los Angeles’ Roman, who at 32 is roughly five years older than his Philly based opponent, is no easy night of work for any fighter. He also appears to have the necessary amount of confidence walking into Saturday’s match. “I’m up against a very skilled fighter who doesn’t have many flaws,” Roman says, via Forbes, “but every man has a weakness, and I’m going to exploit Fulton’s.”
Confident or not, Roman is going to truly have to put on the performance of a lifetime this weekend. Defending champion Fulton won his WBO title by defeating the undefeated Angelo Leo in January of last year. He then went on to win his WBC title by beating the undefeated Brandon Figueroa. No one can say Fulton is afraid to take on the top competition. It’s actually refreshing to see a titlist continue to show a real career hunger, as Fulton does. There’s a serious risk to be found in always challenging yourself, however. Yet Fulton wouldn’t have it any other way.
“He’s looking to get back on top,” Fulton says of former titlist Roman, making it clear he expects his opponent to leave it all in the ring Saturday night. It’s something Roman is making no secret of. ” The world will see a greatly improved version of myself in this fight,” he says. “I’ll be throwing a lot of punches until the final bell, and I’m preparing to go the distance.” It’s frankly too bad that this card will be going up against the ESPN aired George Kambosos-Devin Haney lightweight title throwdown. Both are worthy of fan’s full attention.
