Too much length, constant punishment, complete domination.
In a thorough, brutal display, undisputed women’s flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora cruised to a seventh-round TKO victory over replacement challenger Alexas Kubicki on Saturday night at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California.
Referee Ray Corona stopped the bout at 43 seconds of the seventh, shortly after Corona inspected Kubicki as the weight of the barrage took effect.
Fundora, now 17-0 (9 KOs), opened impressively, popping Kubicki with a steady diet of power lefts to the head in the first round. She then backed Kubicki to the ropes early in the second and battered her with a combination. A head-rocking right closed the round for the champion.
Fundora pursued both the head and the body in a crushing third, inspiring her father-trainer, Freddy Fundora, to encourage her between rounds: “Have fun,” he said.
Kubicki’s trainer admitted it was an unenviable position for his fighter, who sought to charge forward, attempting to negate Fundora’s reach disadvantage in the futile hope of landing a power shot. Instead, Kubicki’s face became increasingly marked and her pre-fight talk of winning had vanished. Kubicki, who is from Edmonton, Canada, is now 13-2 (2 KOs). She came in as a substitute when Fundora’s originally scheduled foe, Ayelen Granadino, 12-2-4 (1 KO), was denied a visa to enter the United States.
On the undercard, Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Abdullaev remained on his fast track toward a top 15 ranking at 140lbs with a unanimous decision triumph over veteran Kevin Johnson, who suffered his sixth consecutive defeat and is now 12-8 (8 KOs).
Judges scored it 80-72 and 79-73 (twice) for Abdullaev, a 2024 Olympian who is now 3-0 (1 KO) as a pro.
Whipping a power left hook to complement his effective right, Abdullaev bypassed prospect gatekeeper Johnson with activity and power that discouraged the Las Vegas product.
Johnson’s savvy and footwork provided a complex test for Abdullaev, however, and the veteran extended his career-long string of never being stopped.
Earlier, hometown fighter Grant Flores, a junior middleweight from Coachella, California, improved to 12-0 (9 KOs) with a unanimous decision victory by scores of 80-71 (twice) and 79-72 over Courtney Pennington, now 17-10-3 (7 KOs).
Flores scored a seventh-round knockdown of the 38-year-old Pennington and then badly pummeled the veteran near the end of the eighth.
Another Golden Boy Promotions prospect, welterweight Joel Iriarte of Bakersfield, California, was more impressive in knocking out Eduardo Hernandez Trejo of Tijuana, Mexico, who is now 8-5 (5 KOs).
Iriarte, now 9-0 (8 KOs), decked Hernandez with two right hands to the head, recording the finish at 2:06 of the third round.
