By Sean Jones: Sebastian Fundora vs. Tony Harrison was announced by the WBC today for March, with the winner to face the victor between undisputed 154-lb champion Jermell Charlo and Tim Tszyu of their January fight.
The 6’6″ Fundora (20-0-1, 13 KOs) will defend his interim WBC junior middleweight title against #1 contender ‘Super Bad’ Harrison (29-3-1, 21 KOs) on a still-to-be-determined date and venue in March.
Harrison, 32, has a heck of a chance of winning this fight if the unbeaten Fundora looks as bad as he did in his last fight against Carlos Ocampo on October 8th.
Fundora looked awful, struggling to beat Ocampo by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that was a lot closer than the scores handed down by the three judges.
They scored 117–111, 118–110, and 119–109. However, many boxing fans have Fundora winning by a razor close 115-113 score.
Regardless of the questionable scoring for the fight, what’s important to remember is how badly exposed Fundora was by a fighter that had been knocked out in the first round by Errol Spence Jr in 2018.
“We have Tony Harrison against Sebastian Fundora for the final elimination for the interim title with the winner to fight the winner of [Jermell] Charlo vs. [Tim] Tszyu,” said WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman during Wednesday’s convention.
The winner of the Fundora vs. Harrison fight will have their work cut out for them against the Charlo vs. Tszyu clash. Jermell already knocked out Harrison in the 11th round in 2019, and Tony has looked bad in his two fights since then, fighting to a 12 round draw against Bryant Perrella in 2021 and beating Sergio Garcia last April.
At least boxing fans will get a good idea of how good Fundora is when he faces Harrison because he’s still an unknown commodity because he’s not fought anyone good yet. While Fundora did stop Erickson Lubin in the ninth round last April, the fight was a real war, with both guys taking a lot of punishment.
After that grueling battle, Fundora looked depleted in his next bout against Ocampo, and you got to wonder if the Lubin fight took something out of him. If that’s the case, Fundora will be easy prey for Harrison next March.
Jermell has a good chance of holding into his four titles next year by beating Tszyu and the Fundora-Harrison winner.
