In a hollow T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night, Stephen “Cool Boy Steph” Fulton did not look like he wanted to be there, and for portions of his fight against Carlos Castro, he did not seem like he was there.

Fulton won a 10-round split-decision in his featherweight debut over Castro, winning by narrow scores on the scorecards of David Sutherland (96-93) and Don Trella (95-94), which overruled Lisa Giampa’s 95-94 scorecard for Castro on the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez-Edgar Berlanga pay-per-view.

Fulton, the former WBO and WBC junior featherweight titlist, was coming off a 14-month layoff after his eighth-round knockout loss to junior featherweight world champion Naoya Inoue last July 25 in Tokyo.

Fulton was fighting for the first time as a featherweight, working for the first time with trainer Bozy Ennis, the father, manager and trainer of his son, IBF welterweight titlist Jaron “Boots” Ennis.

“I feel strong at this weight, I just needed to get the ring rust out of the way,” Fulton said. “Castro is a great Mexican warrior, so shout out to him. My coaches were telling me to keep my left hand up because he was trying to get the right hand in over the top. I allowed it to get through and I had to overcome adversity.

“I could have let my hands go a little bit more. I didn’t want to box too much because I felt so good, but I could have boxed with my legs more. I have to get back in the gym, work on my movement and come back for the world title.

“Sparring is the easy part, when you get in here with the pressure, that’s when it counts. The rust definitely played a part, but I’m back and I’m better.”

Early on, Fulton (22-1, 8 knockouts) seemed stiff, methodical, though worked the inside well, but he was getting hit by Castro. He was taking shots to the body and head. He came back to his corner after the second round with a bloody nose.

Entering the fifth, Castro (30-3, 14 KOs) landed 61 of 231 punches (27%) to Fulton’s 51 of 169 (30%), though at that stage, Fulton appeared to have the better of Castro with his inside body work and harder punches.

Stephen Fulton had a rough featherweight debut, but got up from a fifth-round knockdown to win a split-decision over Carlos Castro (Photo courtesy of PBC).

Then, with 2:07 left in the fifth, Fulton was dropped for the third time of his career with a counter right hand on the forehead. Fulton struggled the rest of the round and had the wherewithal to get out of the round.

Fulton, 30, recovered well. He returned to his corner calm and collected, and admitted, “He (Castro) got that round.”

The knockdown seemed to wake up Fulton. He raised his level the remainder of the fight. Fulton began backing Castro up with his jab, and did well countering Castro with the left hook. According to CompuBox stats, Fulton outlanded Castro 100 landed punches to 89. He got inside Castro’s shoulder, breaking him down, and throwing his right more consistently.

Then in the eighth, Castro had Fulton in trouble again. With 2:23 left in the eight, a left hook, followed by a short right hand had Fulton stumbling and trying to clinch.

But Castro failed to close allowing Fulton to survive once more—and move on.

It was not the way Fulton wanted to enter the featherweight division. Some would say he was given a gift decision.

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Follow @JSantoliquito [twitter.com]

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