For approximately two years, Ra’eese Aleem has continued to hoot and holler in the direction of Stephen Fulton. Most recently, after dissecting Mike Plania over the course of 12 rounds on September 4th, Aleem (20-0, 12 KOs) audaciously called for Fulton to face him in the ring.
Ostensibly irritated with his perpetual callouts, Fulton revealed how he truly feels about his fellow super bantamweight.
“He’s corny to me,” said Fulton on the PBC Podcast. “To the media and the casual boxing fans, yea, he may be nice to them but to me, he’s corny to me.”
Aleem, 32, has yet to have a competitive bout through 20 pro appearances. But even with the Las Vegas native carving through his competition, Fulton isn’t convinced that he’ll be much of a threat.
Ultimately, as the unified champion continues to watch the career of Aleem play out, Fulton (21-0, 8 KOs) begins to squint while gazing at his longtime rival's resume. Considering that Aleem’s career spans well over a decade, Fulton wonders when he’ll face more credible opponents.
“He’s desperate to get a fight. When have you ever heard about me being scared of somebody? I done fought the top five of the division. He has yet to fight a name.”
Fulton, a Philadelphia native who’s currently in possession of the WBC and WBO super bantamweight titles, has only shown an interest in facing fellow unified champion, Murodjon Akhmadaliev. In his last outing, the 28-year-old easily outboxed Daniel Roman, ushering the former unified titlist into retirement.
If everything goes according to plan, Fulton would successfully wrestle away the IBF and WBA titles from Akhmadaliev, before lining up a showdown against unified bantamweight champion and pound-for-pound star, Naoya Inoue. Taking into consideration the historic bouts that Fulton could soon be a part of, he sees no reason to take Aleem up on his fight offer.
“I’m growing. I just turned 28, I already walk around 145 or more. My body ain’t gonna be able to keep getting down in weight. That’s why I’m not so quick to fight somebody that's not going to bring anything to me like Aleem and Luis Nery. What am I getting out of fighting them right now? I'm in talks for undisputed and Inoue. If they was in my shoes, they wouldn't be so quick to fight somebody that ain’t got nothing to offer for them.”
