Naoya Inoue injured, fight with Stephen Fulton Jr postponed

Naoya Inoue has suffered an injury training, and his scheduled fight with Stephen Fulton Jr — set for May 7 in Japan — has been postponed, according to ESPN.com’s Mike Coppinger.

Inoue (24-0, 21 KO) will be challenging for the WBC and WBO 122 lb titles held by Fulton (21-0, 8 KO) whenever the fight does happen. There’s no current new date at hand.

This also will put into question the fight happening at all, of course; that’s just natural, particularly when you’re talking about a PBC fighter (Fulton) with two world titles going to Japan to fight Inoue, who is a Top Rank fighter. The fight happened because both fighters wanted it, though, and hopefully that will be the case still, and neither the WBC or WBO get in the way.

The good news is, Inoue has been a friend to all sanctioning bodies over the years, and he’s a real star, so hopefully the normal worrisome issues are just not a problem here.

Inoue won the undisputed bantamweight championship last December, beating Paul Butler to gain the final piece of that puzzle, and has won world titles at 108 and 115 lbs, too, in a career that has seen him high on the pound-for-pound rankings for years.

Fulton beat Angelo Leo for the WBO 122 lb title in Jan. 2021, and added the WBC belt by beating Brandon Figueroa 10 months later. He made a defense last June against Danny Roman.