By Scott Gilfoid: #1 ranked WBC lightweight Jose Armando Santa Cruz (26-3, 15 KOs) made easy work of journeyman Miguel Angel Munguia (16-13-1, 13 KOs) in a 5th round TKO on Wednesday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Santa Cruz, 27, dominated every round except for the 1st, and put a hopelessly outclassed Munguia away with a leaping left hook to the midsection in the 5th round. Munguia rolled around on the canvas afterwards, in obvious pain from the shot to the midsection while referee Jack Reiss counted him out at 0:42 of the round.
Santa Cruz was coming off a controversial 12-round split decision to Joel Casamayor, who just happened to be in the audience on Wednesday night. The fight against Munguia was meant as a stay busy fight for Santa Cruz, a fight to stay sharp while he waits for a title shot. Going into the fight, Munguia had lost 12 out of his last 14 fights dating back to 2003. Perhaps knowing that he stood almost no chance of beating a fighter as good as Santa Cruz, Munguia came out on fire in the first round throwing a storm of punches at Santa Cruz. In all, Munguia threw an incredible 103 punches, yet landed only 19 mostly wide slapping to the head and body of Santa Cruz. Still, the punches had an effect on Santa Cruz, reddening his face and keeping him busy trying to block and unable to start his own offense up.
Munguia had nothing left in the 2nd round, as he now acted as if he were a completely different fighter from the one that came out fast in the 1st round. Instead of trying to get off his shots as he did in the previous round, he was no mostly standing around and getting belted repeatedly by Santa Cruz. Using a nonstop punching attack that reminded me a lot of a smaller, thinner Antonio Margarito, Santa Cruz, all arms, battered Munguia around the ring for the entire round like a punching dummy.
Things stayed the same in rounds three and four, Santa Cruz used hard hooks to the head and body to keep Munguia under constant duress. When he would attempt to answer back now, Munguia would miss his shots by a mile hitting nothing but air in their slow, wide arcs. By the 4th round, Munguia was bleeding badly from his nose which had taken some really big punches from Santa Cruz. Mostly, though, Munguia was having problems with the body shots that Santa Cruz was hitting him with, which seemed to be draining the fight out of Munguia in a rather rapid manner.
In the fifth round, Santa Cruz finally put an end to the one-sided slaughter when he threw a leaping left hook that connected to Munguia’s midsection, sending him down to the canvas in pain. The fight was almost immediately stopped at that point as Munguia was in great pain from the body shot, as he rolled around on the canvas for a minute afterwards, clutching his painful midsection and grimacing in obvious pain from the big shot.