To stand out in women’s boxing today is no easy task, especially when those at the top are so dominant, the best fight the best, and the policy of the best fighting the best just so happens to deliver some of the most entertaining fights of the year.
However, if one was to nitpick, it could be argued that the main thing the women’s game has long lacked is a puncher, someone whose fights keep fans on the edge of their seats in a way other fights, ones destined to go the distance, perhaps do not.
Enter Gabriela Fundora.
Still just 22 years of age, Fundora, or “Sweet Poison”, has won all 15 fights as a pro and ended seven of them before the final bell. She has won three of her last four fights by knockout and, on Saturday, added the WBC and WBO flyweight belts to the IBF title she already owned. Suffice it to say, she did so via her preferred and favorite method of victory: knockout.
Her opponent on this occasion was Gabriela Alaniz, an Argentine who had previously lost just once, against Marlen Esparza. It was against Esparza, in fact, that Alaniz later won her WBC and WBO flyweight belts when, via split decision, she reversed her only pro defeat in their rematch.
In light of this, she presumably went into the fight against Fundora full of confidence only to realize soon into it that in Fundora she was up against a totally different animal. Whereas with Esparza, for example, Alaniz was able to get settled and was competitive in splitting two close 10-round decisions, against Fundora there was no such luxury. Instead, all Alaniz received in Las Vegas were hurtful punches from the outset, with the finish, produced by Fundora in round seven, as brutal as any you will see in women’s boxing this year.
It started with Alaniz going down early from a left cross, then later in the same round she went down again, the impact of this second left cross far greater than the impact of the first. Second time around it became clear Alaniz was hurt, so much so that she fell backwards, turned, and didn’t know where she was. The fight was stopped thereafter.
This, rather than some bolt from the blue, or a one-off incident, simply represented more of the same for Fundora. By now, in fact, we have grown used to seeing her finish opponents in this manner and, what is more, she is doing it now at a level at which fights tend to go the distance. Typically, in female world title fights what we see are two women so evenly matched it is hard to separate them and even harder for one of them to make enough of a dent in the other to secure a truly conclusive victory. As a result, both of this and of them boxing 10 two-minute rounds as opposed to 12 three-minute rounds, we invariably see women’s world title fights head to the scorecards.
This can make the experience of watching them a predictable one, albeit rarely boring. It is predictable only in the sense that there is a better than average chance that one round will lead to another, meaning that to watch becomes more an exercise in counting – punches landed, rounds won – than holding one’s breath in anticipation of a finish. When the action is good, of course, the importance of a finish is somewhat mitigated. Yet it remains true that there is still nothing better than a fight forever at risk of ending in the blink of an eye.
With Fundora, you get this feeling of unpredictability every time she sets foot inside the ring. Unlike so many of her peers, she is blessed with the kind of frame, punch arsenal and spite boxing fans associate with heavy shots and knockouts. She is taller than most of the opponents she fights, yet, rather than rely on this size advantage to stay away or keep her distance, Fundora is instead a tall fighter who knows how and indeed likes to fight small; much in the vein of someone like Diego Corrales. She uses long arms and legs to generate leverage, rather than as a getaway vehicle, and is therefore both a nightmare to fight and a pleasure to watch.
This is doubtless why Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions have been so keen to push her. They see her as more than just the younger sister of Sebastian, the current WBO junior middleweight champion, and can detect in Gabriela some untapped star potential.
“I think every fighter should emulate her heart,” De La Hoya said after Saturday’s win. “When she has somebody hurt, she goes stronger and stronger. Every round that passes by, she wants the knockout. We have a star on our hands. She’s a great person, great fighter, and a great ambassador for women’s boxing.”
If De La Hoya knows what works, it is fair to say Fundora has a good idea, too. “Listen to how the crowd was – that explains it all,” Fundora said in the ring post-fight. “I think everybody enjoys a knockout.”
Better than just aware of this, Fundora possesses the power to do something about it and appears more than ready to fill the vacancy of “knockout artist” in the women’s game. Against Arely Mucino, from whom she won the IBF belt in 2023, it was evident from the off how different Fundora was from other girls and how her punches seemed to come from unusual angles and contain an abnormal degree of power. In the very first round she managed to hurt Mucino to the body so badly Mucino scurried back across the ring until she felt the ropes against her shoulders. She then continued to hurt Mucino for the next three rounds before, in round five, she dropped her with a right hook-left cross combination as Mucino staggered forward. Shortly after that Mucino, nailed again by a huge right hook, was stuck on the ropes, overwhelmed, and eventually saved by a combination of referee and corner team.
In retrospect, that fight acted as both a warning to the rest of the flyweight division and an audition for Fundora as women’s boxing’s must-see puncher. In it was all the evidence we needed to know that she thinks differently, hits differently, and ends fights differently. Scariest of all, with her being just 22, the likelihood is that Gabriela Fundora only gets stronger, more powerful, and more accustomed to finishing fights on her terms. Soon there won’t even be the element of surprise.