Sebastian Fundora is an anomaly among super welterweights.
The lanky left-handed boxer stands 6-foot-6, historically tall for the 154-pound division. Somehow, the 27-year-old Fundora weighed in again Friday more than a pound below the limit for his weight class, at 152.8 pounds.
Much shorter fighters squeeze themselves down to compete in Fundora’s division. They almost never step on the scale below 153 pounds.
Fundora, nicknamed “The Towering Inferno,” grew tired of discussing his height long ago. He understands why people ask about it before and after his bouts, but the defending WBC/WBO champion would prefer to discuss almost anything else.
As unique as Fundora is in his division, he might no longer be the most successful fighter in his own household. Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs), Sebastian’s younger sister, became boxing’s undisputed flyweight champion by winning her last fight.
Gabriela, 22, is Uncrowned’s No. 5 pound-for-pound women’s boxer in the world and the youngest boxer, male or female, to become a fully unified champion in any weight class during the four-belt era. Uncrowned named her Female Fighter of the Year for 2024.
She went 3-0 last year. Her seventh-round stoppage of Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz (16-2, 6 KOs) in November earned her the WBC and WBO belts to go along with the IBF and WBA 112-pound crowns she already owned.
“I was telling everybody, ‘Watch out, she’s going to be the best girl fighter in the world,’” a smiling Sebastian told Uncrowned. “And she won the Ring magazine [award] earlier this year [in January], so I’m happy to tell everybody that I’m right. I told everybody she’s going to be the one, and now she’s proving it. So I’m just happy for her. She’s doing her job, she’s doing it well and she’s making a big splash in the sport.”
Gabriela’s big brother has taken center stage for now, however. Sebastian (21-1-1, 13 KOs) headlines a 10-fight card at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena on Saturday night, when he’ll defend his two titles against Chordale Booker (23-1, 11 KOs).
Sebastian is a 10-to-1 favorite according to BetMGM. He hasn’t fought in almost a year, not since he defeated Australia’s Tim Tszyu by split decision in a 12-round, bloody battle at T-Mobile Arena.
Sebastian thought he would’ve secured a higher-profile fight by now. Former unified welterweight champ Errol Spence Jr. entered the ring to challenge Fundora following his upset of Tszyu last March 30.
That pay-per-view fight failed to materialize, though, which left Fundora to partake in a less marketable main event versus Booker, the fifth-rated contender by the WBO and the WBC’s 13th-ranked challenger. Booker, a southpaw from Stamford, Connecticut, has won six fights in a row, but he has been stigmatized by a first-round TKO loss to Austin “Ammo” Williams in April 2022 at Madison Square Garden.
Sebastian has learned during his time at the championship level that contemporaries talk about accepting difficult fights more than they take those challenging assignments. He prefers to let his performances speak for him. In fact, other than heaping praise on his younger sister, it isn’t easy to get the mild-mannered champion to discuss much of anything other than boxing.
That’s because the Fundoras live the lives of boxers 24/7, even when they’re not technically training for a scheduled fight.
“He wakes up, trains, eats, sleeps, wakes up, trains, eats, sleeps, and does the same thing all over again,” Gabriela said of Sebastian. “That’s really who he is.”
Her, too, actually,
“I’m him,” she said, “but a girl version.”
That’s how their father and trainer, Freddy Fundora, raised them.
Sebastian started to box at age 5, Gabriela at 6. Fabiola — at 10, the youngest of Freddy’s six children — took up the sport “even younger” than Gabriela.
The oldest of the Fundora siblings, Alberto, retired after going 12-0 mostly as a middleweight and super middleweight from 2014-17.
“He just stopped,” Freddy explained. “He didn’t want to do it. Boxing is not for everyone. I introduced him to the sport. And when they are 18 and older, I give them two years if they want to do it after high school. You want to do it? Or you want to go to school? They choose their own path. He’s in the automobile business.”
Freddy’s other two sons, Freddy Jr. and Leandro, don’t box.
Still, at their home in the mountains north of Bakersfield, boxing is very much the family business. They rarely take days off, which is why Sebastian and Gabriela don’t need to make weight in the way most boxers go about it.
“It’s a blessing,” said Freddy, who was a big boxing fan while growing up in the Los Angeles area. “They work hard. We work hard as a family as a whole. We live up in the mountains. When it snows, we each have a shovel, even my 10-year-old. We always work as a family, as a unit, so it works out well.
“The reason they’re so confident and nonchalant about it is we do this every day. People say, ‘Training camp,’ and this and that. We don’t do that. ‘How do you make weight?’ We don’t make weight. We work on this weight. We eat five meals a day. And they don’t understand it. I don’t expect them to understand it. It’s a plus for us when they don’t understand it.”
They all understand that Sebastian and Gabriela are in perfect position to make all of their hard work and sacrifices pay off.
Sebastian might make a mandated defense of his WBO belt against Puerto Rican contender Xander Zayas next. If he beats Booker, Sebastian and Zayas (21-0, 13 KOs) could meet late in the summer at Madison Square Garden in New York, where Zayas has established a loyal following.
Gabriela believes she has become an attraction by knocking out three of her past four opponents, an uncommon rate among women in boxing.
“When people tune in to see my fights, I want them to only care to see the name Fundora,” Gabriela said. “And I don’t care who I fight. It’s almost like ‘Canelo’ — no one’s going to remember who the heck he fought. Yes, he’s fighting an undisputed fight [against William Scull on May 3]. But they’re tuning in mostly to see ‘Canelo.’ And I want that to be the case with me as well.”
She hopes that is again the case for Sebastian on Saturday night.
“We’ve been working hard for this,” Gabriela said. “So now that it’s all coming together and people are recognizing it, that’s a good feeling, and more people are starting to see it. With the performances that not only Sebastian gives, but also myself, no one ever falls asleep during our performances. It’s always eye-catching from the beginning until the end. We’ll continue doing that, growing as boxers and growing as people.”
Gabriela’s next fight hasn’t been scheduled. Freddy is certain, though, that she will continue building on the momentum she established in 2024.
“She’s going to be huge,” Freddy said. “She doesn’t know it yet. She’s only 22 now. People didn’t believe in female boxing, so you’ve got to give them something to believe in. We’re in the entertainment business. People say, ‘Oh, boxing is a circus nowadays.’ Being in the circus is pretty hard. Have you ever seen those guys flipping in the air? It’s pretty hard. It’s not easy. It’s entertainment. We’ve got to do something different than just running around the ring or complaining all the time.”
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