Sebastian Fundora kept his pursuit of an undisputed championship strictly on track with literally a second to spare on Saturday night at the Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. In a dramatic conclusion to a hard-fought battle, Fundora stopped stubborn mandatory challenger Ermal Hadribeaj with a sharp left hand at 2:59 of the 12th and final round to successfully retain his WBC super welterweight title.
The victory marked Fundora’s fourth successful defense of the belt and handed Hadribeaj the first professional defeat of his career. With the win, the towering champion improved his professional record to 25 wins, 1 oceanic loss, and 1 draw, with 17 of those victories coming by way of knockout. Hadribeaj, meanwhile, slipped to 23 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw, having earned his mandatory title opportunity earlier in the year following a notable victory over the previously unbeaten Bakary Samake.
Reflecting on the tense 12-round affair, Fundora offered a candid assessment of his performance inside the squared circle. “It was an interesting fight,” Fundora said during his post-fight remarks. “I had to go back and fight on the inside and show everyone again that I can still do that. It was dramatic to knock him out at the last second. But we’ll go back to the gym and fix some things.”
The bout unfolded as a tactical and physical test for the champion, who entered the ring with clear aspirations of unifying the competitive 154-pound division. From the opening bell, Hadribeaj adopted a persistent strategy, aggressively attacking the champion’s body. The Miami-based Albanian fighter frequently crouched beneath Fundora’s towering frame, slipping inside the champion’s long reach to land looping shots over the top.
Fundora found his timing in the second round, catching the challenger with crisp counters that forced Hadribeaj to alter his approach. As the rounds progressed and Fundora’s pressure mounted, Hadribeaj increasingly resorted to holding to disrupt the champion’s rhythm and stifle his offensive output. Referee intervention followed, resulting in Hadribeaj having points deducted for holding in both the third and the 11th rounds.
Throughout the middle frames, Fundora methodically worked his way inside, carving out room for punishing uppercuts and maintaining a steady pace of forward pressure. The accumulated damage began to tell as the championship rounds approached.
“I told the ref in the fourth round that I was hurting him,” Fundora recalled. “I kept landing body shots and was looking for that special shot to get him out of there. I was hitting him in the rib cage the whole time with the left hand and when I went up the middle, I heard the noise that he made. So I just kept touching that and knew it would break him.”
That persistence paid off in the final seconds of the fight. With the clock winding down and the final bell just moments away, Fundora landed the decisive left hand that sent Hadribeaj down at 2:59 of the 12th round, punctuating the evening with a spectacular and timely finish.
The victory continues a strong career resurgence for the 28-year-old southpaw from Coachella, California. Standing at an imposing 6 feet 5 inches, Fundora has now rattled off five consecutive victories since suffering a setback against Brian Mendoza via knockout in April 2023. Fundora famously captured the WBC and WBO super welterweight titles against Tim Tszyu in March 2024, and has since followed up that career-defining win with successful defenses against Chordale Booker, a rematch victory over Tszyu, and a stoppage of Keith Thurman.
With another defense successfully recorded, Fundora’s ambitions remain firmly fixed on the absolute pinnacle of the weight class. “I want to go for undisputed in this division,” Fundora stated, laying out his future plans. “We’ll break either Jaron Ennis or Josh Kelly down. Just like the last guy and the guy before that. We’ll keep breaking them down.”
The undercard action in Las Vegas featured a robust lineup of supporting bouts, highlighted by an intense co-main event in the super middleweight division. Armando Resendiz showcased his resilience over 10 hard-fought rounds to outlast Australia’s Koen Mazoudier by unanimous decision. The ringside judges scored the bout 98-92, 97-93, and 97-93 in favor of Resendiz, bringing his professional record to 17 wins against 3 losses.
Mazoudier, who fell to 16 wins, 5 losses, and 1 draw, proved to be a formidable opponent. Resendiz landed punishing left hands through the middle phases of the fight, but Mazoudier consistently answered by trading on the inside and mounting a determined late-match rally. Resendiz ultimately finished the contest on a strong note, catching Mazoudier and sending him stumbling backward in the final minute of the tenth round.
“We pulled this off because we had great preparation,” Resendiz said after the decision was read. “This was the kind of fight that I expected. I had to change my game plan and box and move a little bit because this was a very tough fight.”
Earlier in the evening, Marco Romero maintained his undefeated status in explosive fashion. Romero needed just 1 minute and 54 seconds of the first round to secure a victory in his scheduled eight-round super middleweight bout against Matias Ferreira. Romero ended matters abruptly with a crushing right hand, improving his record to 16 wins without a defeat, with 14 of those wins coming inside the distance. Ferreira dropped to 8 wins and 4 losses following the first-round stoppage.
“He was too slow,” Romero remarked regarding his swift victory. “His speed and experience didn’t matter.”
In another competitive matchup, Jaime Osuna preserved his unblemished professional record by capturing a hard-fought majority decision over Cristian Cangelosi in an eight-round middleweight encounter. The victory elevates Osuna’s record to 12 wins and zero losses, while Cangelosi suffered his first defeat, moving his record to 13 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw.
“It was a fight that took everything I had from beginning to end,” Osuna reflected following the closely contested bout.
