Broner Encourages Fulton Following His Loss, Thurman’s Regret

Adrien Broner had a few words of encouragement for Stephen Fulton following his loss to Naoya Inoue.

The American suffered an eighth-round-stoppage loss to the Japanese in a bout where he was comprehensively outclassed.

As a result, Inoue picked up the WBC and WBO super-bantamweight titles as Fulton suffered the first defeat of his career.

While Inoue targets an undisputed fight with Marlon Tapales, Fulton must go back to the drawing board.

The latter’s reluctance to engage with Inoue was scrutinized by virtue of the fact that he was the much bigger man. 

And yet, Broner defended the criticism that was coming Fulton’s way. 

Broner’s Comments

“I see a lot of [people] putting up bull s**t posts, saying, ‘He [Stephen Fulton] got his a** kicked. Stephen got his a** kicked,’ but these are the same people that have never put on a pair of boxing gloves in their life. They ain’t never jumped in that squared circle, bro, especially against a bad mother f***er, a world-class fighter,” 

“So, I want to say to Steph, keep your mother f***king head up,” said Broner. “Don’t let that s**t keep you down. Don’t let that s**t have you down at all, and I want to see you in Vegas this weekend [for the Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford fight at the T-Mobile Arena]. Come out, pop out,” Broner

Broner’s Problems

Broner understands what it takes to go through the struggles in the sport. The boxer has been very vocal about his mental health issues which caused him to walk away from the sport until his return against Bill Hutchinson.

Despite getting a unanimous-decision win on his return, Broner had given a troubling interview as he appeared drunk.

This was followed up by a long apology online where ‘AB’ apologized to a long list of fighters including Floyd Mayweather and Gervonta Davis. 

And those words from Broner may prove valuable moving forward.

Keith Thurman’s Regret

Moving from one fighter to another, Keith Thurman is also looking to bounce back from his recent struggles with inactivity by targeting the winner of Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford. 

The two welterweights face each other for the undisputed welterweight championship on July 29th, 2023.

Victory would make the winner the greatest welterweight of the current era and go down as an all-time great.

And as a result, one fighter will remain undefeated in a division that is historically tough to conquer.

The winner will most likely move up from welterweight, despite the existence of the rematch clause, thus leading to the belts becoming vacant.

Thurman admitted that he is waiting in the wings for the winner, which would then most likely require him to move up to 154 pounds. 

Thurman’s last fight was in 2022 when he faced Mario Barrios. Despite beating him in a unanimous-decision, Thurman has not had a fight in 18 months.

And the fact that the former unified welterweight champion is 34, time is not on his side to get the biggest fights out there. 

After all, his only loss came at the hands of Manny Pacquiao in 2019. That is no shame against a hall-of-famer and an eight-division champion, even if Manny became the oldest welterweight champion in history with the win. 

Although that may be the case, Thurman had the opportunity to fight Spence when ‘One Time’ was the WBA champion. The fight did not materialize since the ‘Truth’ was a challenger coming up. 

Thurman’s Comments

“When there’s another fight out there, and you’re chasing after world titles and the guy that is trying to fight you doesn’t have a world title, it’s not that enticing.

“It’s very unfortunate. I still would like to fight the winner of Spence-Crawford or the loser of Spence-Crawford. The truth is, Crawford has never seen Thurman. Spence has never seen Thurman.

“It’s things like this that make boxing great. “If Thurman has to go up to 154 to make these big fights happen [against Spence & Crawford], then so be it. I’ll do it. Let’s get back in the ring; let’s get a respectable fight [read: tune-up] on this year’s calender,” Thurman

Thurman’s Future

Nevertheless, facing Thurman does not provide much of an incentive that it once used to do. With no belts on offer, Thurman is ultimately heading towards the end of his career.

And facing the next generation of welterweights is not in his best interests, who are more likely to be hungrier and of course younger. 

‘One Time’ has to consider his steps moving forward carefully. But by the looks of it, Thurman may not be in the position to call the shots like he used to do. 

However, provided that the winner of Spence-Crawford moves up, then the vacant belts would be on offer, giving Thurman perhaps one more chance.