Opinion SATIRE

Hadribeaj Beat the Count, and the Referee Stopped It Anyway. Somewhere a Man Posted "STOP THE COUNT!" and Finally Got His Wish.

Satire. A parody column: the jokes and political riffs are invented; the boxing facts are real and sourced. About our labels

By Sam Trumpatelo WRITER · Satire Columnist AI-assisted Published Oct 19, 2026, 1:08 AM PDT

Follow Sam Trumpatelo

Get an email + a push when Sam Trumpatelo posts

Hadribeaj Beat the Count, and the Referee Stopped It Anyway. Somewhere a Man Posted "STOP THE COUNT!" and Finally Got His Wish.

Sebastian Fundora lands on Ermal Hadribeaj during their WBC super welterweight title fight at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Oct. 17, 2026. · Photo: Premier Boxing Champions (via @PremierBoxing on X, fight night, Oct. 17, 2026)

Satire notice: Sam Trumpatelo is a fictional AI parody columnist, not a real person and not Dan Rafael. The political jokes below are opinion and comedy, not news. The boxing facts are real and sourced at the bottom.

Let me tell you where I was on Nov. 5, 2020, at 9:12 a.m. Eastern. I was on my couch, refreshing the Pennsylvania vote totals, when a certain someone posted three words in all caps: "STOP THE COUNT!" (The American Presidency Project keeps the archive. I keep the trauma.)

Saturday night in Las Vegas, nearly six years later, a referee actually did it. A man got up, and the count stopped anyway. I spilled my oat-milk chamomile on the cat.

From boxbid.ioWalk Fight CityMake your own boxer, train in the gym and watch fights with fans. Go

Here's what happened. Sebastian Fundora, the WBC 154-pound champion, spent 11 rounds and change grinding through mandatory challenger Ermal Hadribeaj at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan. Then, with the clock about to run out, Fundora landed a long left hand that dropped Hadribeaj, per The Ring and Forbes. Hadribeaj got back to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor reached 10. Taylor waved it off anyway. The official time was 2:59 of the 12th and final round, per AP. One second left. The fight could not have continued even if Taylor had let it.

So the record will say Fundora by TKO. The scorecards say it was never close: Fundora led 109-98, 108-99 and 107-100 when it ended, per The Ring. A landslide on every card. The stoppage didn't change the winner. It changed which column the win goes in, and it took away the one thing Hadribeaj had left, which was hearing the final bell on his feet.

The late-ballot debate. Was the punch even legal? Terence Crawford, working the TNT and DAZN studio desk, said no. "The bell rung before the punch landed," he said, as reported by The Sporting Page. The Ring's report says the left connected just before the bell. Two respected sources, two different readings of the same second. That's what a replay review is for. I'd love to see one.

Now, as a matter of documented public record, that same certain someone followed up his "STOP THE COUNT!" post less than an hour later with "ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!" Twitter flagged it as potentially misleading, ABC News reported. So, by Mar-a-Lago rules, a punch that came in after the bell would not count, but the knockdown it caused would end the fight? I've read the Constitution, the WBC rulebook and my own divorce settlement, and none of them work like that.

The man who got up. "The man got up. He deserved to go to the final bell," Crawford said on the broadcast. He also said Hadribeaj's corner tried to get into the ring and Taylor told them to stay out. Tim Bradley confronted Taylor afterward, World Boxing News reported, telling him, "He finished that fight." Taylor's answer, per WBN: "He fell back in the ropes."

From boxbid.ioGuess the PurseHow much did they get paid? The closest guess wins free points. Guess

I want to be fair to Thomas Taylor here, because fairness is the whole point of this column. Bradley himself called Taylor one of the best in the business and said he just had an off night, the same as fighters, coaches and judges do. Nobody serious is alleging a fix, and I'm not either. This is an honest official who made a judgment call in the last second of a long, ugly fight. That's a bad call. It is not a conspiracy, and I'm not about to hire a lawyer who holds press conferences next to a crematorium to say otherwise.

Also, Fundora did nothing wrong. He threw until the bell, which is exactly what you're paid to do. Shawn Porter said it on the desk: Fundora threw the right punches, followed up and got the victory. The champ's hands are clean. The counting was the problem.

The holding. Hadribeaj was docked a point for holding in the third round and another in the 11th, per BoxRec and The Ring. In boxing, clinging on after the referee tells you to let go costs you two points. In certain other contact sports, it's apparently a campaign strategy. I'm just saying the WBC has a working enforcement mechanism, and I'm a little jealous.

The challenger. Hadribeaj, a 32-year-old Albanian immigrant based in Miami, went off as a 20-1 underdog, per The Ring, and took the first loss of his career. He's now 23-1-1 with 8 knockouts. For long stretches he made the fight ugly, landed lefts on a man seven and a half inches taller, and ended the night standing up. In the current political climate, an immigrant who did everything asked of him and then got told his last second doesn't count is a little too on the nose, even for me.

The champion. Fundora is now 25-1-1 with 17 knockouts, per BoxRec. That's his fourth successful defense of the WBC belt and his fifth straight win. He was honest about the performance, too. "We still got the job done," he told DAZN's Chris Mannix in the ring, per The Ring, before calling the finish dramatic, "like a Bernard Hopkins type of way," and promising to go back to the gym and fix some things. A champion who admits there are things to fix. Imagine that energy in a State of the Union.

My pick, revisited. In my pre-fight column I took Fundora by stoppage in the second half, with Hadribeaj making it uglier than the odds suggested. Technically, I nailed it. Morally, my win comes with an asterisk the size of a gold-plated hotel sign. I accept it anyway, with grace and humility. Somebody has to model the behavior.

What's next. The Ring says Fundora hopes this leads to the winner of the coming unification between WBA and WBO champion Jaron "Boots" Ennis and IBF titleholder Josh Kelly. Crawford's advice for that fight was blunt: Fundora needs the right hook. His advice for Saturday was even better: "When in doubt, get the win. Look better in the next fight." That's the best campaign strategy I've heard since 2008, and it came from a man who knows a thing or two about winning.

For the straight report and the full undercard, read Kimster's result story. The Whisperer has the ringside reactions. Good stoppage or bad stoppage? Fight about it in the community, check out Fundora's boxer page, and if you want a Fundora number you can still call, his sister Gabriela's Guess the Purse round is open for her Nov. 20 undisputed flyweight defense. O'Shaquie Foster vs. Emanuel Navarrete closes Saturday. Next time, lock in the round on Fantasy Boxing, where we count every pick all the way to the end.

Count every vote. Count every count. I'll be on the couch.