Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury 2: PPV undercard results

The world’s attention was on Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury for their rematch, but there were also three PPV undercard bouts. Here’s how they played out.

Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury 2 captured the public’s attention, but three undercard bouts were part of the pay-per-view event as well. Here’s what happened before the historic heavyweight title fight.

The first undercard on pay-per-view pitted the giant 6-foot-5 super welterweight Sebastian Fundora (14-0-1, 9 KOs) against the 5-foot-10 Daniel Lewis (6-1, 4 KOs). Fundora was the favorite, but the undefeated Lewis didn’t make it an easy night.

Fundora won by unanimous decision, but it wasn’t his most impressive performance. He has a heavyweight’s reach, 82 inches, but he didn’t use it. His jab kept the distance, but his punches weren’t straight, which allowed Lewis to get inside and make things rough. Lewis had a good showing in defeat and warrants a second look.

The second contest was a title bout with Emanuel Navarrete (31-1, 27 KOs) defending his WBO super bantamweight title against Jeo Santisima (19-3, 16 KOs). Before the bout, Navarrete mentioned that cutting weight for the division was becoming difficult. That may have impacted his performance.

Navarrete had several bursts throughout the night. Round 5 was particularly one-sided in his favor. He used his size to push Santisima to the ropes and landed a barrage of punches that almost stopped Santisima. Santisima held on and made it through the round.

Navarrete expended a lot of energy trying to knock out Santisima in the fifth and didn’t look as effective for the following rounds, but had a second wind.

In the 11th round, Santisima became overly confident and tried to go at Navarrete. That proved to be a mistake. Navarrete withstood Santisima’s offensive and pounded him with vicious combinations along the ropes. Santisima was defenseless, and his corner wisely threw in the towel. Navarrete got the TKO win, but will likely move up to featherweight.

The final pay-per-view undercard bout featured heavyweights Charles Martin (28-2-1, 25 KOs) and Gerald Washington (20-4-1, 13 KOs) in an IBF title eliminator. Both came into their matchup off knockout wins.

Most of the first five rounds were slow going. The combination of Martin’s southpaw stance with Washington’s conventional position made it hard for both men to land. There were a lot of swings and misses, but Martin slowly started to find a home for his left hand.

In round 6, Martin landed a straight left-cross to the center of Washington’s face that dropped him. Washington got to his feet but was on unsteady legs. The referee stopped the fight, which gave Martin the win and an eventual shot at the IBF title.

Earlier in the night before the pay-per-view portion of the night, Petros Ananyan (15-2-2, 7 KOs) pulled a big upset over Subriel Matias (15-1, 15 KOs). Matias was a rising star in the super lightweight division, but he fell apart over the second half of the fight. Ananyan scored a knockdown in the seventh when the ropes saved Matias from going down.

Other notable prelim action included super lightweights Amir Imam (21-3, 18 KOs) and Javier Molina (22-2, 9 KOs). Molina provided another upset. He was able to outwork Imam and win by unanimous decision.