Fundora Drops Hadribeaj With One Second Left, Eyes Ennis Unification

Sebastian Fundora got his hand raised with one second left on the clock. The 6-foot-5 WBC super welterweight champion dropped Ermal Hadribeaj at 2:59 of the 12th and final round to retain his title in Saturday's DAZN main event, salvaging a clean finish from a fight that had spent most of its length grinding toward the scorecards.

It was an ugly night by design. Hadribeaj ducked low, clinched constantly, and fired the occasional looping shot, doing everything he could to drag Fundora out of rhythm. That approach cost him — he was deducted two points over the course of the fight for persistent holding — and it never did much to blunt the champion's work downstairs.

How It Unfolded

The body attack was the story. Fundora kept chipping away round after round, and by the championship rounds Hadribeaj's legs were visibly compromised. The accumulated damage set up the ending: with the final bell seconds away, Fundora found the shot that put the challenger down and out.

For a fighter whose frame makes him one of the most physically distinctive champions in the sport, Fundora's success here came the old-fashioned way — pressure and volume to the midsection rather than anything flashy. It wasn't pretty, but it was a finish, and finishes are what keep you in the conversation at 154 pounds.

What It Sets Up

The real headline isn't the stoppage — it's what comes next. Fundora is positioned for a unification against the winner of the anticipated Jaron "Boots" Ennis vs Josh Kelly fight, a bout that hasn't been formally announced yet. When it is, Ennis will be the clear favorite, and Fundora made it plain afterward that he's gunning for whoever emerges.

Kelly is no afterthought in that equation. The IBF champion sits at 18-1-1 (9 KO) and most recently edged Bakhram Murtazaliev by majority decision — a quietly impressive result given Murtazaliev's reputation. But it's Ennis, the pound-for-pound favorite in most rooms, who looms as the name everyone wants.

Fundora said he's already looking ahead to an undisputed title showdown in the first half of 2027. That's an aggressive timeline, and it depends entirely on the Ennis-Kelly fight landing where it's expected to. If it does, the super welterweight division gets the unification it's been circling for a year.

The Bigger Picture

For Fundora, the priority now is staying active and avoiding the kind of tune-up that produces another 12-round slog. He got the win and kept the belt, but a performance built on body-punching accumulation against a holding specialist isn't the kind of showcase that builds momentum. A clean, decisive outing against a ranked contender would do more for his stock.

Hadribeaj, for his part, made it to the final seconds of a world title fight — no small thing — but his spoiling tactics and the two-point deduction underline why he was always the underdog. The referee's patience ran out, and in the end so did his legs.

The clock is now ticking on the other side of the bracket. Once Ennis vs Kelly is official, the path to an undisputed 154-pound champion becomes a straight line through Fundora. He's done his part. The rest is up to the fighters above him on the marquee.