Interim WBC junior middleweight champion Sebastian ‘The Towering Interno’ Fundora (20-0-1, 13 KOs) defeated the game Carlos Ocampo (34-2, 22 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night in their headliner at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
The fight ended up a lot more competitive than it originally was expected to be, as the 6’6″ Fundora chose to box from the out through much of the fight, enabling Ocampo to make it competitive with his harder, cleaner-landing shots.
The judges’ scores were as follows:
What was interesting about the fight is that Fundora stayed on the outside, jabbing Ocampo rather than taking it to the inside and battering him the way he’d done his last opponent Erickson ‘The Hammer’ Lubin, last April.
Ocampo took advantage of Fundora’s decision to box by nailing him with powerful left-right combinations, making the rounds close and hard to score. In the end, the judges were more impressed with Fundora’s boxing ability than the shots that Ocampo was connecting with.
Ocampo’s face started to swell up in the championship rounds, and his body language suggested that he was weakening a little. That said, Ocampo didn’t let up and continued to fight hard until the final bell.
In the second half, Fundora took the fight to the inside and nailing Ocampo with uppercuts and hooks. The punches were made more effective due to Ocampo leaning forward and getting hit cleanly. Those shots from the lanky Fundora seemed to sap the energy of Ocampo because he was getting hit far too much.
Referee Jack Reiss looked like he was going to halt the fight in the 9th round due to Ocampo getting hit with massive shots from Fundora.
Both fighters went at it in the 10th round with Fundora getting the better of the action. Ocampo was desperate at this point, perhaps knowing that the referee was ready to step in at any time because of the punishment that he was taking from Fundora.
Late in the fight, Fundora backed off and stayed at range, using his jab to control the 11th and 12th rounds. Ocampo continued to fight hard, but he was getting beaten up by the hard jabs from Fundora.
All in all, it was a good performance from Fundora in choosing to box rather than slug as he’d done in the past. In hindsight, if Fundora had fought Ocampo the way he did Erickson Lubin, he could have scored a knockout.
However, Fundora would have needed to take a lot more shots to get the stoppage, which is probably he chose to use his height & reach to get the victory instead.
