By Vince Dwriter: With her older brother Sebastian sitting ringside, 20-year-old flyweight Gabriela Fundora kicked off the October 8 Showtime Boxing preliminary festivities by showcasing different facets of her boxing arsenal, and cruising to a unanimous decision victory over Naomi Reyes at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
Standing at 6-foot-5, Sebastian Fundora is a boxer who prefers to disregard the utilization of his physical advantages as he opts to stand in the pocket and trade shots with his opponents, but his sister Gabriela has a different type of fighting style. During her bout against Naomi Reyes, the 5-foot-9 inch flyweight prospect used her height and reach advantage as she fired her jab early and often.
In a match that was considered a step-up bout, Fundora used her jab throughout the first round to keep the 5-foot-1 Reyes off balance.
During the second round Reyes tried to close the distance, but when she decided to come forward with her attack, Fundora consistently landed countershots that caused Reyes to step back and reset.
Gabriela Fundora began to stockpile points as she controlled the distance, and was able to box from the outside. At the midway point of the bout, Fundora continued to execute her game plan of controlling the distance and boxing from the outside, but when she had to work from the inside, she was able to land sharp combinations.
Reyes spent most of the early rounds trying to download data to get a better grasp of timing her opponent, and she had brief success in the sixth round when she went over the top of Fundora’s jab and landed a nice left hook. Unfortunately for Reyes she couldn’t follow up with her brief success as Fundora had a solid seventh round.
The final rounds of the match were dictated by Fundora as she started applying pressure and landing big right hooks. In the tenth and final round Fundora continued to control the tempo of the fight, and she was able to land some solid combinations to the body and head of Reyes. At the conclusion of the 10-round bout, Gabriela Fundora was awarded a unanimous decision victory by the scores of 99-91, 99-91, and 98-92.
Naomi Reyes (9-2, 5 KOs) came into the bout riding a five fight win streak, but unfortunately for Reyes, the streak ended on the night of October 8. She gave a valiant effort as she tried to utilize a multitude of attacks to close the distance, but Fundora’s physical attributes combined with her boxing skills were too overwhelming for Reyes to overcome.
Gabriela Fundora (9-0, 4 KOs) was able to successfully put her boxing skills on display, and in addition to featuring her skill set, she was able to show her maturity and poise inside the squared circle. Fundora wants to stay active and fight the best possible opposition because she is in a race with her brother Sebastian to see who will be the first sibling to win a world title.