Sebastian Fundora kept his WBC super welterweight title on Saturday night. He stopped Ermal Hadribeaj with a knockout in the final second of the 12th round. The fight was held at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
One second left
Hadribeaj had never lost before. The referee then docked him a point in the third for holding.
Hadribeaj answered in the fourth, his close-range punches sending Fundora back to his corner bleeding from the mouth. The champion took control from there, throwing a stream of uppercuts in the fifth and landing about three punches for every one in return by round seven. By the eighth his straight shots had marked Hadribeaj's face while his own stayed clean.
A body shot in the tenth left Hadribeaj breathing heavily, and Fundora drew blood from his mouth. The referee docked a second point in the 11th for holding, and the card read 108-100 for Fundora before the last round. In the final exchange the champion pinned him in the corner with short lefts and hooks, then a straight put him down and referee Thomas Taylor counted him out.
The finish drew doubt at once. Yahoo reported that the bell had already rung before the last punch landed and that the referee did not notice. It said he could have let Hadribeaj rise rather than stop the fight, leaving the result open to scrutiny.
Four defences, one goal
This was Fundora's fourth title defence. The 6 ft 6 in American, 28, used his height and reach all night and moved his record to 25-1-1 with 17 knockouts. Hadribeaj, a +650 underdog, fell to 23-1-1.
Fundora said afterwards that he liked knocking his man out in the last second, and called it "a very active fight." He admitted he had to fight on the inside and that "there were a lot of mistakes." An overhand, he said, is what got his challenger out.
