Brandon Figueroa: record, next fight and profile →
Stephen Fulton Jr.’s confidence is climbing through the roof following his unanimous decision win over Angelo Leo earlier this year, a victory that led to the Philadelphia fighter capturing his first world title.
Undefeated super bantamweight contender, Ra’eese “The Beast” Aleem (18-0, 12 KOs), who captured the WBA Interim title in his last fight, was ringside at the recent 122-pound clash which saw Luis Nery (31-1, 24 KOs) lose his WBC title when he was knocked out by Brandon Figueroa (22-0-1, 17 KOs).
On Tuesday afternoon in Mexico, the WBC weekly press conference culminated with a celebration, as they welcomed the new WBC super bantamweight world champion Brandon Figueroa and his family members who traveled all the way from Texas.
Irish Olympian Michael Conlan is very focused on securing his world title shot. Conlan (15-0, 8 KOs) is the WBO's mandatory challenger to bantamweight world champion Stephen Fulton.
It was a fight Stephen Fulton hoped would take place nearly two years, though one which has proven to be worth the wait. The unbeaten WBO junior featherweight titlist was among the most interested observers in the room when Brandon Figueroa registered a 7th round knockout of Luis Nery earlier this month at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The win netted Figueroa the WBC junior featherweight crown in addition to retaining his secondary WBA belt while setting up a title unification clash with Fulton due to take place September 11 on Showtime.
Brandon Figueroa announced his arrival with authority at the top level of the junior featherweight division. An emphatic 7th round knockout win over two-division titlist Luis Nery (31-1, 24KOs) answered any questions as to whether the unbeaten Texan could rise to the occasion. At 5’8” and still growing into his man strength at just 24 years of age, the next question is if he can still make weight long enough to give himself a chance to run the table.
Brandon Figueroa felt by the third or fourth round Saturday night that he had destroyed Luis Nery’s will. By then, Figueroa figured Nery realized that he didn’t have the conditioning or the determination to deal with the fearless Figueroa’s relentless attack. In the seventh round, Figueroa nailed Nery with a left uppercut to the body that sent Nery to the canvas.
Showtime’s viewership increased Saturday night for its broadcast of Brandon Figueroa’s knockout of Luis Nery. Nielsen Media Research reported Tuesday that an average of 221,000 viewers watched Showtime’s main event from Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The average viewership for the Figueroa-Nery fight was higher than the prior main event Showtime televised.
By Corey Erdman - When people discuss the problems with modern boxing matchmaking, the most common complaint is that the best fighters aren’t matched up against one another as regularly as they should be. In the current boxing landscape both promoters and networks lay exclusive claim to entire rosters of fighters. Without wholesale structural change to the sport, greater goodwill amongst competing promoters, or simply fully agnostic networks dangling monetary carrots to produce big matchups, there will always be fights that aren’t made at the exact time we would hope they would be —if they’re made at all.
Brandon Figueroa has spent his entire career listening to people tell him what he can’t do, only to continue to prove them wrong. That trend held true Saturday evening following a 7th round knockout of previously unbeaten WBC junior featherweight titlist Luis Nery at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. It’s a storyline he expects to resurface ahead of his September 11 title unification clash with WBO champ Stephen Fulton.