Stephen Fulton asked for more room on the scale. He got it, and still missed by more than six pounds. That’s the short version of why his fight against Liam Wilson, the co-main event of Saturday’s Errol Spence Jr. and Tim Tszyu card in Sydney, has been cancelled. That’s also the reason why it’s now the second fight lost from the card in a single week and Fulton didn’t try to dodge the blame.

“Why would I fly all the way to Australia with no intentions to make weight?” Fulton wrote on X. “Is it my fault? Yes, and I take accountability, but I gave it my all! Once I got to 138, I wasn’t sweating any more. I thought and believed I could make the weight.”

At Saturday’s official weigh-in, Fulton tipped the scales at 139.5 pounds, nearly seven pounds over the 133-pound catchweight limit. That number stings more given the context. The fight was originally contracted at 130 pounds, and No Limit Boxing had already agreed to move it up to 133 at Team Fulton’s own request, with Wilson’s side signing off on the accommodation. Missing by that margin after already being handed extra room did little to help Fulton’s case.

Wilson’s team made their frustration clear in a video shared by the promotion.

“About 140 pounds, supposed to be 133,” Wilson’s coach Ben Harrington said. “He had no intentions of making it. There’s no effort made at all. What a let-down.”

Wilson’s manager, Glenn Jennings, was just as pointed.

“This feels like an absolute stitch-up,” Jennings said. “We sign a contract at 130, there’s an expectation you will deliver. It’s totally unacceptable and a blight on the sport. This is unprofessional. There’s nowhere to go for this bloke now.”

The stakes made the miss harder to explain away. The Wilson fight was set up as a WBA super featherweight title eliminator, meaning a win would have put Fulton back in position to challenge for a belt. That opportunity is gone now, and it comes at a particularly bad time given what happened in Fulton’s last fight.

This wasn’t an isolated slip. In December, Fulton weighed in two pounds over the featherweight limit ahead of his fight with O’Shaquie Foster on the Isaac Cruz-Lamont Roach Jr. card, forcing that bout to be hastily reworked into a WBC interim lightweight title fight instead. Fulton lost that one by decision, and missing weight again just months later, by a far larger margin, makes it two straight fights he’s failed to make.

This wasn’t a one-time slip, either, and that pattern is what makes Fulton’s situation harder to shake off. The most galling aspect of Fulton’s situation is that it will be the second consecutive time the Philadelphia has failed to make weight.

Stephen Fulton and the scale just can’t see eye to eye

Jermall Charlo’s scheduled fight against Koen Mazoudier was pulled earlier in the week after Charlo was denied entry into Australia. Boxing journalist Dan Rafael reported the denial stemmed from Charlo’s past legal issues, including a 2022 arrest for assault and a 2024 DWI charge that had already cost him the WBC middleweight title. Between Charlo’s visa denial and Fulton’s weight miss, the undercard has lost two of its more notable fights in a single week, leaving Paulo Aokuso’s bout against Luis Tejeda elevated to fill the gap.

Fulton’s situation isn’t without precedent elsewhere in the sport. Last June, Keyshawn Davis came in 4.3 pounds over the lightweight limit ahead of his first title defense against Edwin De Los Santos, costing him his WBO belt on the scale. Negotiations to save the fight anyway fell apart, and it was scrapped entirely. Fulton avoided that particular outcome only because there was no title on the line to strip, just an opportunity that’s now gone.

In a follow-up post, Fulton apologized directly to those affected.

“My apologies go to No Limit Boxing as well as Lou Decubas, TGB Promotions, my team, and the fans. I gave it my all and lost to the scale. I thought the 133 lbs mark would be better, but when I got to 138, there was nothing left to lose and no sweat coming from my body,” he wrote.

At the press conference, Fulton said he’s likely to move up to 135 pounds going forward, a suggestion that carries less weight given how badly he missed the mark this time.

Saturday’s card goes on as planned. Spence and Tszyu both made the agreed 160-pound limit at 159 pounds each, and their main event heads into fight night as the one piece of the show that hasn’t come apart at the scale.