“I’m probably going to get out earlier than that,” Fundora said to All The Smoke. “I love the sport of boxing, but it’s changing. It’s not like how 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 did not go after anyone directly. He even made a point to say he is not against it. The tone still carried something else underneath it.
“I’ve been training my whole life for this,” Fundora said. “And this guy, who just did nothing 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 has done it the long way, building through the amateur system, working his way into title contention, and now holding a belt at 154. That path used to be the standard. It no longer guarantees anything beyond the title itself.
The current market is different. Big platforms, crossover appeal, and outside names can drive the biggest events. Fighters who followed the traditional route are now sharing that space with people who arrived from outside the sport and moved faster to the top end of the pay scale.
Fundora accepts how the sport has changed. The question is what that means for someone who built his career the old way.
That question ties directly into his timeline. If the rewards are no longer tied to the years put in, there is less reason to stay deep into his 30s chasing something that may not come.
He is still in a position to build his own run. On Saturday, Sebastian defends his title against Keith Thurman on 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 go through with that path. He just may not stay on it as long as fighters once did. It doesn’t sound like a complaint as much as a realization.
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