“I’m probably going to come out sooner than that,” Fundora told All The Smoke. “I love the sport of boxing, but it’s changing. It’s not like you guys used to fight. Now you have these YouTubers, now you have everybody else coming in, and anybody can get a belt, and anybody can be a superstar in this sport.”
He didn’t go after anyone directly. He even made a point to say he was not against it. The tone carried something else beneath it.
“I’ve been training for this all my life,” Fundora said. “And this guy, who just didn’t do anything with the sport, now he’s fighting on the same platform. It’s like, what did I do all this for?”
Fundora sounds a little resentful, and it’s hard to blame him. He’s made it the long way, built through the amateur system, worked his way to title contention and now holds a belt at 154. That path used to be the standard. It guarantees nothing more than the title itself.
The current market is different. Big platforms, crossover appeal and outside names can power the biggest events. Fighters who followed the traditional route are now sharing that space with people who have arrived from outside the sport and moved more quickly to the top end of the pay scale.
Fundora accepts how the sport has changed. The question is what this means for someone who built his career the old way.
This question connects directly to his timeline. If the rewards are no longer tied to the years put in, there is less reason to stay deep into one’s 30s chasing something that may not come.
He is still in a position to build his own run. Sebastian defends his title against Keith Thurman on Saturday, March 28 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a fight that still fits the old model of boxing: a champion, a former champion and a clear sporting test.
Fundora (28) will continue down that path. He just may not stay at it as long as fighters once did. That doesn’t sound like a complaint so much as a realization.
