Brian Mendoza came into his bout with Sebastian Fundora focused on pulling an upset.
And that is exactly what Mendoza did.
Mendoza scored a seventh round knockout live on Showtime in the main event from Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
With the win, Mendoza became the interim WBC super welterweight champion.
“I never quit,” Mendoza said. “I kept going. You can beat me all you want, but if you don’t kill me, I’m coming back. They didn’t kill me in my career and it’s too late now, I’m getting better each time. I want to thank Fundora for taking this fight. He didn’t need to take it. It was really risky for where he was at.”
Having scored back-to-back knockouts to earn this fight, Mendoza (22-2, 16 KOs) connected on a picture-perfect left hook early in round seven that badly hurt Fundora (20-1-1, 13 KOs), and followed up with a powerful left-right combo that put Fundora down for good.
“I saw he was open so I had to head in for the kill because I knew he wasn’t gonna stop coming either,” Mendoza said. “This is my moment, this is my time. I predicted everything that was going to happen in my past two fights and how they were going to end and everything.”
