WBO Mandates Sebastian Fundora Vs. Terence Crawford Unification Bout

The World Boxing Organization has ordered WBC/WBO junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora (21-1-1, 13 KOs) to face interim champ Terence Crawford next. Terence (41-0, 31 KOs) holds the WBA 154-lb title and the interim WB) belt.

30-Day Negotiation Window

If they choose to fight, Crawford and Fundora have 30 days to agree in a purse bid. It’s unknown if the fight will happen because both fighters have other ideas for who they want to fight.

Crawford has shown no interest in trying to become undisputed at 154, perhaps due to the hard work he would need to put in by defeating Fundora, 26, and then the winner of the Tim Tszyu vs. Bakhram Murtazaliev.

Crawford would probably go in this direction if he weren’t pushing for a lucrative fight against Canelo Alvarez at super middleweight. There’s more money for Crawford to scoop up against Canelo, and he’d only have to fight once to get it.

If Crawford chooses to try and become undisputed at 154, there’s the possibility he could lose to Fundora or the Tszyu-Murtazaliev winner. Either way, it’s a lot of hard work, high risk, and punishment that Crawford must take to accomplish this task.

Fundora’s Towering Presence

Fundora, 6’6″, is so tall, and he’s got a good enough beard to take Crawford’s shots and dish out a beating on him. If Crawford thought he took many hard shots from Israil Madrimov earlier this month, just wait for what he would have to take fighting Fundora.

It wouldn’t be nice because he throws a lot of punches, and he’s not shot or weight-drained like Spence was last year. That was Crawford’s best career win, and he didn’t look anywhere near as good against Madrimov earlier this month on August 3rd.

Fundora was supposed to defend his WBC and WBO 154-lb titles against Errol Spence next. If that’s still his plan, he’ll vacate his WBO title if Crawford agrees to the fight. There’s good money Fundora can make fighting Spence, and it’s potentially a bigger payday than against Crawford unless His Excellency Turki Alalshikh is interested in contributing to the purses to make this a Riyadh Season event.

Crawford is coming off a narrow 12-round unanimous decision over WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov in his debut at 154. Terence did not look good in that fight, showing that he’d hit his ceiling for what he could do in moving up to his fourth division at 36.