LAS VEGAS – For the past couple for years, Sebastian Fundora has been a guest at the International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend in Canastota.

It is his way of paying homage to this sport’s legends, and a way of reminding himself of his own dreams.

The 26 year old from Coachella, California, has rubbed shoulders with the great and the good of boxing in the sleepy upstate New York town, and – as always – he stands head and shoulders above most because crowds of fight fans mob the 6ft 5 1/2ins light middleweight for pictures and autographs. 

It is a weekend he has come to look forward to each year.

“Oh definitely,” Fundora smiled. “And the past two years we’ve been going to Canastota to meet those legends and the way they talk to us and the way they receive us is if we are on track already to be there, so it’s very nice to have all those people recognize that and it motivates me to continue to grow and to become one myself.”

Fundora has a way to go before he gets a plaque in the museum there, but he is more focused on his short-term goals, which begin with upsetting Tim Tszyu in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Yes, Fundora wants to win, but he wants to deliver the type of performance that he has always enjoyed watching himself – a destructive one.

“I like those people who knockout everybody,” he said. “I like the Gennadys [Golovkin], [Mike] Tysons, Lennox Lewis, the Klitschkos; a lot of heavyweights are icons of the sport for good reason too.”

Not many heavyweights would look down on the gangling Fundora, who was preparing to face Serhii Bohachuk on the big March 30 Las Vegas bill before taking an urgent phone call less than two weeks ago.

“It was on Sunday, we were building some fences [at his home] and our promoter Sampson [Lewkowicz] calls us and he says, ‘[Keith] Thurman got injured with his bicep and Tim Tszyu needs an opponent – are you willing to take the fight?’ 

“Of course, with Tim Tszyu, that’s a big fight  –  of course we were willing to take it and then they mentioned we were fighting for the WBO and the WBC, so that was like a double-yes from us. We were very excited to hear the news.”

There was no hesitation. Bohachuk on the same bill instead meets Brian Mendoza, who was the last man to fight and beat Fundora. Does Fundora, 20-1-1 (13 KOs), see himself as the man who saved the show? The affable challenger on Saturday night laughs at that.

“I guess, yeah, if they want to call it that,” Fundora added. “God gave me a big, big opportunity and we just took it.”

The paycheck is bigger, too, but the ambitious 26-year-old insists that is secondary.

“Of course, but this is more of a legacy fight,” he smiled.

And while Fundora was not preparing solely for Tszyu, it is a fight that has always been on his radar, and one that regardless might have even been next.

“I have a feeling that if we had won this fight [against Bohachuk] it would have been the next one, so either now or later on, it was going to happen regardless,” Fundora explained.

The Fundora assignment for the well-regarded Australian is different to the Thurman task he previously had at hand. Thurman is an orthodox fighter, experienced and perhaps – one could contend – on the downside. And he was moving up in weight. Fundora is a tall lefty – a volume puncher who fights at 154lbs, although he has not boxed since the Mendoza calamity in Carson last April.

While some have heralded Fundora for saving the show, some boxing insiders slammed the sanctioning bodies for giving a unified title shot to a fighter who was knocked out in his last fight.The affable Fundora sees it both ways.

“I understand both sides because there’s a business to boxing,” he continued. “There’s the sport of boxing, then there’s the business of boxing. I was ready, I’m pretty sure they had their options; they had their [Erickson] Lubins, their [Jesus] Ramos and all that, the top five. I’m in the top five as well. I only have that one loss, other than that, I was ready. I was on the card and ready. I was ready to fight for the WBC vacant, but they knocked on my door and I answered. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I answered.”

In essence, however, the changes are starker for Tszyu than they are Fundora, who feels the standard similarities between Bohachuk and Tszyu suit him.

“I don’t think it’s too much different, especially in terms of what we were training for,” Fundora said. “We had Bohachuk, who’s right-handed, orthodox, he’s a pressure fighter and he’s a power puncher. So all these things check off the same for Tim Tszyu, the only difference is that he’s a shorter fighter [than Bohachuk], but other than that, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. We are obviously the taller fighter, always, so this is a big fight. 

“He’s very talented, but we’re ready.”

Does Fundora subscribe to the view that it is too late for Tszyu to get ready for such a different look?

“I’m sure he’s prepared well enough for whatever fight, just like I have,” Fundora continued. “It could have been anybody and we would have been ready for this fight, this championship title fight and I just wish he comes in healthy and we make a great fight for everybody.”

The Mendoza fight in Carson in April 2023 was not ideal preparation for a world-title fight. He was winning the fight until the seventh when Mendoza lashed over a huge left hand that steadied Fundora and fixed him to the spot. Mendoza took a step back, then bounded forwards behind a crushing right hand that put Fundora flat on his back.

Of course, that is not world title form, but Fundora insists he knows where he went wrong and that the recovery period, physically and mentally, was not long.

“I have my family, my father, my coach, my sister as well, we keep each other up,” he said of the aftermath of the only loss in his 22-fight career. “The same day we came back [from the fight], my dog was lost, so we had to go and find my dog, so that got my mind off it real quick. And the next day we were doing archery. I went back into training two weeks later, and we’ve been training ever since.”

Some fighters are unable to watch the tape back when they are victims to violent knockouts, but Fundora set about finding what went wrong, even though he instantly had a good idea where he was at fault. 

“I’ve watched it plenty, plenty of times,” he explained. “And I know it’s more of a small mistake, but that small mistake was enough to cost me the whole fight because I was bringing my head down and leaning forward. It was obvious, a bad thing to do in boxing. But we fixed it, we’ve been working on it, and we’re ready for now.

“I knew what I did wrong. I felt like I knew what I did wrong when I was sitting on the canvas as well, but we recovered from it, we’re good, and now we’re ready to become world champion.” 

It’s one of boxing’s well-worn clichés – that fighters learn more from defeat than they do a win, and there is no denying that it has changed Fundora’s outlook and his habits. He has looked at himself and his career through fresh eyes.

“I think so, now you have a more open mind, and you’re willing to look at stuff a little bit different, or a little bit longer now, and recognize what you’re doing wrong,” he stated. “You’re not really going to learn anything if you keep winning… You can, but I think you recognize stuff a little bit better once you have the time to really reflect and I feel like with this whole past year, my biggest lesson was almost planning. It’s easier to go through life with planning, not just boxing, it’s just maturing. I feel like I’ve been maturing this past year.” 

One of the knocks on Fundora is that he doesn’t use his dimensions to his advantage. He is tall, boasts a reach a heavyweight would be envious of, and could surely make things more straightforward for himself if he just boxed, moved and kept opponents at range. Thirteen knockouts from 20 wins indicates he has enough spite to keep them honest, but the fighter’s heart beats strongly within his chest and he can’t refuse the urge to plant his feet and tear into his opponents. He wants to be seen as an action fighter. 

“Of course, I plan all my fights that way,” he admitted. “I want to be a crowd-pleaser, always. I want to be seen as one of the fighters that always gives an exciting fight.”

Does he consider doing things differently” 

“I don’t know, it’s just something that excites me myself. It’s just I like to live a little dangerously I guess, that’s what makes it interesting for me.”

To get to Fundora’s level, you cannot be one-dimensional. It’s likely he does have the ability to box, to use his advantages, but he chooses violence. 

“It’s both,” he replied, when asked whether he has the discipline to box differently or whether he lets his heart rule his head. “I love the action, I love boxing just like everybody else. I love to see the punches, the hard punches and everything land but yes, we have been working on our skills, on our defense, using our IQ and the distance and all that. Like all this camp was really that, but there’s always that piece of me that does what he wants to do. We will see what comes out Saturday night.”

Tszyu is favored to win, and he defeated Mendoza in his last fight, in October. But the onus is on the Australian to announce himself to the U.S. audience.  

Tszyu’s critics contend his best wins were over an old version of Tony Harrison and that Mendoza was losing every round against Fundora until he landed the Hail Mary. Fundora is not a critic. He respects his opponent and rates him highly.

“I think he is a really, really good fighter,” Fundora went on. “I have him as the best fighter at 154 right now, but come Saturday night it will be a whole different tune, so I hope you guys are ready for it.

“He's a good, talented fighter, good pressure, good punch, but again whatever he brings on Saturday night we’ll be ready for. We’ve been training very hard for this past year and I feel like this fight will put us as the best fighter at 154.”

There is already speculation that, should Tszyu win, he lands a fight with the brilliant Terence Crawford, who has not fought since his July destruction of Errol Spence in the same arena where Fundora and Tszyu collide tomorrow. Fundora hopes to scupper any Crawford plans Tszyu might have, and take them for himself.

“I hope so; I hope so,” Fundora said when asked about facing the Nebraskan if all goes well on Saturday. “Speaking of good fighters, that [Crawford] is the best fighter in the world right now, so if I get to fight him next, and if I can win against him, where does that put me?”

And that takes us back to where we started – to the grassy lawns of Canastota, where Fundora hopes one day young fighters might want to shake the hand of one this generation’s boxing thrillseekers.