Fundora brutally knocks out Hadribeaj with one second left to retain 154lb title

Sebastian Fundora kept his pursuit of an undisputed championship on track with a second to spare.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.Fundora (25-1-1, 17 KOs) made his fourth successful title defense and handed Hadribeaj (23-1-1) his first professional loss.“It was an interesting fight,” Fundora said. “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.”Fundora entered the bout looking toward a chance to unify the 154lb division, but first had to get past a stubborn mandatory challenger.Hadribeaj attacked the body early, crouching beneath Fundora’s 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’s offense.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.“I told the ref in the fourth round that I was hurting him,” Fundora said. “I kept landing body shots and was looking for that special shot to get him out of there.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“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.”Fundora, 28, has won five straight fights since Brian Mendoza knocked him out in April 2023. The 6ft 5in southpaw from Coachella, California, captured the WBC and WBO titles against Tim Tszyu in March 2024, then stopped Chordale Booker, Tszyu and Keith Thurman in successive defenses.“I want to go for undisputed in this division,” Fundora said. “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.”Hadribeaj, an Albanian fighter based in Miami, earned his title opportunity with a victory over the previously unbeaten Bakary Samake earlier this year.In the co-main event, Armando Resendiz (17-3) outlasted Australia’s Koen Mazoudier (16-5-1) by unanimous decision in a 10-round super middleweight bout. The judges scored it 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93.Sebastian Fundora has set his sights on becoming the undisputed super-welterweight champion after successfully defending his WBC title against Ermal Hadribeaj in Las Vegas. Photograph: Cris Esqueda/Getty ImagesResendiz landed punishing left hands through the middle rounds, but Mazoudier kept trading inside and rallied late. Resendiz finished strongly, sending Mazoudier stumbling backward in the final minute.“We pulled this off because we had great preparation,” Resendiz said. “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.”Marco Romero (16-0, 14 KOs) stopped Matias Ferreira (8-4) with a crushing right hand at 1:54 of the first round in their scheduled eight-round super middleweight bout.“He was too slow,” Romero said. “His speed and experience didn’t matter.”Jaime Osuna (12-0) remained unbeaten with a majority decision over Cristian Cangelosi (13-1-1) in an eight-round middleweight bout.“It was a fight that took everything I had from beginning to end,” Osuna said.