Gabriela Fundora successfully retained her IBF flyweight title against Christina Cruz live from Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, January 27. The world championship bout was featured on the card topped by Jaime Munguia vs John Ryder.
The scheduled for 10 rounds contest ended prior to the final bell. Referee Chris Flores stopped the fight at 59 seconds into the final round, after following an exchange Cruz covered up and turned her back to Fundora, who delivered a few more punches to the body. Although the champion was arguably leading on the judges’ scorecards, the challenger seemed unhappy with the stoppage. The commentators dubbed it “such a bad stoppage”.
With the victory by TKO, Coachella-based Gabriela Fundora made the first successful defense of the title she had claimed against former champion Arely Mucino via fifth-round stoppage last October. The 21-year-old southpaw of Palm Beach, FL remained undefeated and improved to 13-0, 6 KOs.
Fort Lauderdale-based Christina Cruz didn’t succeed in her first attempt to become world champion. The 41-year-old native of New York, NY dropped to 6-1 and suffered her first career defeat.
“Christina Cruz is a good fighter and I’m glad she stepped up to the plate because a lot of boxers don’t do that,” Gabriela Fundora said post-fight. “She’s an amazing boxer and when I was younger, I looked up to her because she was an Olympian – I even had a picture of her on my bedroom wall.”
“It was a privilege to share the ring with her tonight and I’m glad the referee stopped the fight when he did – she had turned her body around indicating that she no longer wanted to fight.”
Get Munguia vs Ryder full fight card results.