Sebastian Fundora vs. Keith Thurman: Fight postponed after Fundora suffers hand injury in training camp

An Oct. 25 pay-per-view card in Las Vegas, headlined by WBC junior middleweight titleholder Sebastian Fundora and former two-time welterweight champion Keith Thurman, has been postponed, Premier Boxing Champions announced on Friday. 

PBC confirmed the initial report from Mike Coppinger of “The Ring” that Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs), the 6-foot-5 ½ “Towering Inferno,” suffered a hand contusion in sparring that forced him to withdraw. The PPV card, originally set for the MGM Grand Garden Arena, will be postponed to a later date, PBC said.  

After sitting out most of 2024 following his breakthrough, short-notice victory over Tim Tszyu by split decision to unify 154-pound titles in a bloody war, Fundora has been red hot this calendar year in one of the sport’s deepest divisions. Fighting out of Coachella, California, Fundora returned in March to stop Chordale Booker inside of two rounds before vacating his WBO title in order to face Tszyu in an all-action rematch that ended via TKO after Round 7 when the battered Australian star was asked out of the fight. 

Fundora’s injury proved to be yet another setback in the multi-year comeback of Thurman, who was forced to pull out of the March 2024 fight against Tszyu with an injury, allowing Fundora to replace him after moving up from the undercard. Although Thurman would go on to snap a three-year layoff in March when he traveled to Australia to Brock Jarvis inside of three rounds, his plans to finally face Tszyu were spoiled when Fundora got the call, instead, for their rematch. 

Thurman, who turns 37 in November, has fought just twice in the past six years. He rebounded from a 2019 welterweight title loss to Manny Pacquiao via split decision by returning nearly three years later to widely outpoint future titleholder Mario Barrios in a 2022 PPV headliner. 

The Oct. 25 card, which was set to air on Prime Video PPV, also brings with it the postponement of the co-main event, a 130-pound title bout between WBC titleholder O’Shaquie Foster and two-division champion Stephen Fulton Jr. The fight was originally expected to serve as the co-feature to a proposed Aug. 16 PPV headlined by a Gervonta Davis-Lamont Roach Jr. rematch that never came to fruition.