Fundora knocks out Hadribeaj in final seconds of Round 12 to retain WBC title

LAS VEGAS — Sebastian Fundora spent long stretches of Saturday night missing, and then he stopped missing. In the closing seconds of Round 12 at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan, the WBC super welterweight champion dropped unbeaten challenger Ermal Hadribeaj, and referee Thomas Taylor waved it off when Hadribeaj could not get up.

Fundora improved to 25-1-1 with 17 knockouts. Hadribeaj, who came in at 23-0-1, suffered the first loss of his career. The night also lost its original co-main event when Brandon Figueroa became ill after missing weight Friday, but more on that below.

For most of the fight, a Fundora finish looked unlikely. Hadribeaj came in with a plan and stuck to it, one Chris Mannix noted on the broadcast was built around sparring with taller partners. He kept moving early so the 6-foot-5 champion could not set his feet, and after a Fundora left hand rocked him in Round 2, he turned the fight into a firefight by smothering Fundora on the inside. It was gritty, suffocating and effective. A looping right hand found its mark in Round 4, and a right hook kept landing on Fundora’s chin. Hadribeaj’s trainer told Mannix during the round he wanted more work on the inside, and he got it.

The smothering also cost him. Taylor deducted a point from Hadribeaj for holding in Round 3, though analyst Sergio Mora thought he was simply trying to get Fundora off of him. In Round 11, Taylor warned him with 1:47 left, then took a second point less than a minute later.

Fundora kept throwing and kept just missing. By Round 6, the CompuBox numbers on the broadcast showed he had landed just nine of 106 jabs, and Mora urged him to place his shots where Hadribeaj was going instead of where he was. Then the work began to show. By Round 8, a Fundora uppercut had popped Hadribeaj’s mouthpiece partly out, the right side of his body was visibly bruising and he was getting tired. A left hand as Hadribeaj ducked made Mannix react on the broadcast. By Round 10, Hadribeaj was bleeding from the mouth and keeping it open, something the broadcast noticed. Fundora just smiled, the kind of look that unsettles a fighter across the ring.

Then came the finish. With the final bell seconds away, Fundora landed the shot that sent Hadribeaj down, a buzzer beater that turned a tougher fight than expected into a statement. Hadribeaj could not stand up, and Taylor stopped it.

“It was an interesting fight,” Fundora told Mannix in the ring. “I had to go back to the inside and show everyone I can fight on the inside. I like that we knocked him out at the last second. It was dramatic. I’m going back to the gym and going to fix things though.” Asked when he felt the shots take their toll, Fundora pointed to the body. “When I was hitting his rib cage with the left hand I can feel it,” he said. “But when I went up the middle I could hear the noise he made.”

The co-main event was supposed to be Figueroa against Tomoki Kameda for the WBA featherweight title. Figueroa, who was stripped of the belt after missing weight, became ill during his rehydration and was unwell to fight, and the bout was called off. In a statement on Instagram, Kameda said the fight was canceled because of Figueroa’s excess weight and ill health. “But this is not the end,” he wrote, adding that the promoters and the WBA have promised him priority in the upcoming WBA featherweight title fight.

That moved Armando “Toro” Reséndiz and Koen Mazoudier into the co-main slot, and the 10-round super middleweight bout delivered.

Reséndiz won a unanimous decision, 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93, to improve to 17-3, but the fight felt closer than the scorecards suggest. Reséndiz started sharp in the center of the ring with heavy body shots, and Mazoudier never backed down. In Round 2, Reséndiz took a clean right hand from Mazoudier on the chin, ate it and fired right back. Round 4 ended with two belting right hands from Reséndiz in the final seconds, and the crowd responded.

Mazoudier did not have the speed, but he was smart, and Round 6 was his best, when an uppercut snapped Reséndiz’s head back. He landed a big right hand at the bell in Round 7 that stood Reséndiz right up. In Round 8, Reséndiz answered a big left hook with five straight right hands, then smiled at the bell, acknowledging the toughness across from him. 

Both men traded to the bell in Round 9 and the crowd roared its appreciation. With 30 seconds left in the 10th, a Reséndiz combination rocked Mazoudier, who smiled and stayed up. Mora called it an old school battle and compared it to a real life video game.

For Fundora, the result keeps his title and a bigger path open. Asked by Mannix whether the winner of Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Josh Kelly is the one he wants next with the other three belts out there, Fundora did not hesitate. “Absolutely,” he said. It is the same matchup he named during an Instagram Live last week. “We are going to break them down. We are going to keep breaking these guys down.”