Sebastian Fundora’s last-second stoppage of Ermal Hadribeaj drew objections during a post-fight discussion involving Terence Crawford and Tim Bradley, while Dan Rafael called for the result to be changed to a decision.
Hadribeaj appeared able to continue when the referee halted Saturday’s fight in Las Vegas. The unusual ending put a cloud over Fundora’s WBC junior middleweight title defense, with the dispute focused on Hadribeaj beating the count after the final bell had already sounded.
“All he had to do was get on his feet,” came one objection during the discussion involving Crawford, Bradley and the referee.
The referee defended his intervention by pointing to Hadribeaj falling back into the ropes and arguing that another attack would have left him in trouble.
“If there’s five seconds left, that guy gets destroyed,” he said.
But those five seconds did not exist. That is the problem with using a possible follow-up attack to justify the stoppage. Hadribeaj had no more fighting left to do if he had beaten the count after the final bell.
Rafael made that argument forcefully on X, urging Hadribeaj’s team to protest to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
“HE BEAT THE COUNT and the bell had already rung,” Rafael said. “Won’t be surprised at all if the NSAC changes the result to a unanimous decision.”
That was Rafael’s expectation, rather than an announced commission action. Still, his criticism gives Hadribeaj’s team a specific issue to raise: whether the referee improperly extended the process beyond the completed count when the fight had already ended.
This is about dollars and cents, not just hurt feelings. Getting tagged with an illegitimate knockout loss hurts Hadribeaj’s marketability and ruins his leverage for future paydays. Fundora keeps his win on the cards anyway, but the commission needs to step in, overturn the bogus stoppage, and take an undeserved KO loss off Hadribeaj’s record.
