He stepped inside the ring after Fundora breezed past Chordale Booker in four rounds on March 22, but the 6-foot-5½ champion had other plans and pursued a Tim Tszyu rematch rather than satisfy his mandatory challenger.

Fundora was the WBC and WBO junior middleweight beltholder at the time and stripped of the latter soon after failing to make the fight with Zayas (23-0, 13 KOs), who has since captured the vacant belt with a points win over Jorge Garcia Perez in July before unifying divisional titles six months later against Abass Baraou.

The 23-year-old Puerto Rican is set to defend his WBO and WBA world titles against Jaron Ennis on June 27 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, headlining a DAZN PPV event.

Zayas is ranked No. 3 by The Ring at 154 pounds, while Fundora is rated one spot above him. If Zayas successfully tackles the tall task that is Ennis – he’s already promised to rip his heart out – he can potentially face a literal taller task by taking on Fundora to further unify the division.

"It was supposed to be made last year," Zayas told The Ring. "Now he's saying it makes a lot more sense because I have two belts. Well, he had them before and could have kept them. He lost the belt because he wanted to.

"Sebastian Fundora is a good fighter. He's a tall, lanky guy and decided to use his reach in the last couple of fights, so that's a good thing. I feel like with the right movement and right game plan, he's a puzzle that's easy to solve."

Fundora (24-1-1, 16 KOs) scored a one-sided, sixth-round stoppage win against Keith Thurman last week.

"He was supposed to beat him," said Zayas. “He dominated a version of Thurman who hasn't been an elite-level fighter since 2019. He's not the same anymore. If he didn't beat him, then it would be a problem. He was supposed to do what he did, I was not surprised by his performance."

Where Fundora goes from here remains to be seen.

Fundora might be inclined to face WBC interim titleholder Vergil Ortiz or take another in-house fight within the Premier Boxing Champions universe by giving former undisputed champion Jermell Charlo a chance to regain a title he never lost in the ring.

After toying with Thurman, Fundora declared that the division runs through him, but Zayas isn't buying it.

"[Fundora's] promoter [Sampson Lewkowicz] is saying that they are not fighting outside of PBC," said Zayas. "So how can you go into a negotiation knowing that this guy doesn't want to fight anybody but the elderly staff that they have at PBC?"

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring’s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan