You could understand if other junior middleweights weren’t rushing to fight Sebastian Fundora before. He’s incredibly tall for this weight class at nearly 6-foot-6 and he throws in volume, truly raining down punches from above.

Then a few things happened. 

Fundora began to look more vulnerable, having to come off the canvas to stop Erickson Lubin in their 2022 battle. In 2023, Brian Mendoza capitalized on that vulnerability, dropping Fundora for the full count and scoring a seventh-round knockout. And last year, Fundora came in as a late replacement opponent and defeated Tim Tszyu, winning Tszyu’s WBO title and the vacant WBC belt.

So now Fundora has two titles that his fellow junior middleweights want. And they know that Fundora can be beaten.

Fundora, of course, will say that it is what he’s recently won – and not his prior loss – that has others eager to face him.

“Now we have a lot more opportunities, a lot more fights to be made now that we have these titles,” Fundora said Thursday at the final press conference before his first title defense, which will see him take on Chordale Booker in Saturday night’s main event at the Michelob Ultra Arena and streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. “Now they want to fight me, because we have these titles.”

When Fundora scored the win over Tszyu a year ago, Errol Spence entered the ring afterward. That seemed the most likely fight, given their shared ties with Premier Boxing Champions. There was also talk that Fundora might face Crawford next. However, Fundora’s and Spence’s discussions never led to an actual fight. So Fundora, 21-1-1 (13 KOs), will take on Booker, 23-1 (11 KOs), with much bigger names awaiting should he come out victorious.

The winner would ideally move forward with a unification bout against IBF titleholder Bakhram Murtazaliev; Crawford, who holds the WBA belt, has no plans to compete at 154lbs this year given his September challenge of super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. There are also contenders such as Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk, Charles Conwell and Xander Zayas. 

Jesus Ramos Jnr, who is facing late replacement Guido Emmanuel Schramm in the co-feature bout, has said he would like to face the winner of Fundora-Booker. Keith Thurman, whom Fundora replaced last year, has finally made it back in the ring after three years away. Thurman is now targeting Tszyu, who is rebuilding from his back-to-back defeats against Fundora and Murtazaliev. 

It is a packed weight class full of intriguing matchups.

“I’m very excited for the future and what’s to come,” Fundora said.

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.