Sebastian Fundora kept his pursuit of an undisputed championship on track with a second to spare.<\/p>\n
Fundora stopped Ermal Hadribeaj with a left hand at 2:59 of the 12th round on Saturday night at the Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas to retain his WBC super welterweight title.<\/p>\n
Fundora (25-1-1, 17 KOs) made his fourth successful title defense and handed Hadribeaj (23-1-1) his first professional loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an interesting fight,\u201d Fundora said. \u201cI 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\u2019ll go back to the gym and fix some things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fundora entered the bout looking toward a chance to unify the 154lb division, but first had to get past a stubborn mandatory challenger.<\/p>\n
Hadribeaj attacked the body early, crouching beneath Fundora\u2019s punches and landing looping shots over the top. Fundora caught him in the second round, and Hadribeaj increasingly resorted to holding to disrupt the champion\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n
Hadribeaj was deducted points for holding in the third and 11th rounds. Fundora found room for uppercuts inside and applied pressure through the middle rounds before delivering the decisive left hand in the final second.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the ref in the fourth round that I was hurting him,\u201d Fundora said. \u201cI kept landing body shots and was looking for that special shot to get him out of there.<\/p>\n
Sebastian Fundora knocks down Ermal Hadribeaj in the final second of their WBC super welterweight title fight on Saturday night in Las Vegas Photograph: Cris Esqueda\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fundora, 28, has won five straight fights since Brian Mendoza knocked him out in April 2023. The 6ft 5in southpaw from Coachella, California, nicknamed the Towering Inferno, captured the WBC and WBO titles against Tim Tszyu in March 2024<\/a>, then stopped Chordale Booker, Tszyu and Keith Thurman in successive defenses.<\/p>\n