MINNEAPOLIS – Stephen Fulton would prefer it if his fight against Daniel Roman weren’t about to air at the same time in the United States as the George Kambosos Jr.-Devin Haney bout.
There will likely be at least some overlap Saturday night between Showtime’s telecast of the Fulton-Roman bout and ESPN’s broadcast of the Kambosos-Haney fight, which will fracture boxing’s niche audience. Fulton would be thrilled, though, to have the opportunity to join the Kambosos-Haney winner as one of boxing’s few fully unified champions of the four-belt era.
Barring a draw or a no-contest Sunday afternoon at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, Sydney’s Kambosos (20-0, 10 KOs) or Haney (27-0, 15 KOs), of Henderson, Nevada, will become the sport’s eighth undisputed champion since four sanctioning organizations became recognized. If the favored Fulton defeats Roman, the WBC and WBO champion wants his following fight to come against unbeaten IBF/WBA champion Murodjon Akhmadaliev.
“I’m not overlooking anyone, but that’s what I want,” Fulton told BoxingScene.com. “I’m putting that in my mindset. I’m not looking past Daniel Roman, but I’m gonna get past Daniel Roman and I will go for the other two belts.”
Uzbekistan’s Akhmadaliev (10-0, 7 KOs) defeated Los Angeles’ Roman (29-3-1, 10 KOs) by split decision in January 2020 to win the IBF and WBA belts. Roman won that closely contested 12-rounder on one scorecard (115-113), but he lost by the same score on the other two cards at Meridian at Island Gardens in Miami.
Akhmadaliev is scheduled to defend his two titles against Ronny Rios (33-3, 16 KOs), of Santa Ana, California, on June 25 at Tech Port Arena in San Antonio. DAZN will stream Akhmadaliev-Rios as part of the Jesse Rodriguez-Srisaket Sor Rungvisai undercard.
There should be no reason, according to Fulton, why Akhmadaliev shouldn’t want to face him in a full unification fight if they win their upcoming bouts.
Fulton is represented by TGB Promotions and is affiliated with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions. Akhmadaliev is promoted by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.
Those competitors don’t typically do business together, but Fulton is optimistic.
“I feel like it’s a makeable fight,” Fulton said. “What other fight would be the reason to stop that fight?”
Philadelphia’s Fulton eventually will move up to the featherweight limit of 126 pounds, but the 27-year-old champion wants to make more history as a 122-pounder before he leaves this division.
“It’d mean everything because I’ll be only the ninth [undisputed champion], because you know, Haney and Kambosos are about to fight,” Fulton said. “But I would look forward to not only becoming the ninth undisputed champion of the four-belt era, but the first in this weight class.”
Fulton-Roman is the main event of a “Showtime Championship Boxing” broadcast set to start at 9 p.m. ET. In the 12-round co-feature, Cuba’s David Morrell Jr. (6-0, 5 KOs) will defend the WBA’s secondary super middleweight title versus Kalvin Henderson (15-1-1, 11 KOs), of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Before Morrell, a Minneapolis resident, and Henderson square off, Showtime will air a replay of its pay-per-view main event the previous Saturday night – Gervonta Davis’ sixth-round stoppage of Rolando Romero.
Baltimore’s Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) dropped North Las Vegas’ Romero (14-1, 12 KOs) with a counter left hand late in the sixth round at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Referee David Fields stopped the action at 2:49 of the sixth round because he wasn’t comfortable with how Romero responded to his commands upon reaching his feet.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.