By Dan Ambrose: The Nevada State Athletic Commission has reportedly rejected the 21-year-old junior middleweight contender Jaime Munguia (28-0, 24 KOs) as the replacement opponent for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) to fight on May 5th, which means Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan (27-2, 19 KOs) is back in the picture once again as the leading candidate to get the fight.
It’s good that the Nevada Commission is showing some class in looking out for the health of Munguia. If they had let this fight happen, it could have been real bad. A mismatch like this would have been especially bad given the amount of attention the fight would get on May 5th due to it being Cinco de Mayo and Golovkin fighting.
The Nevada Commission likely would have been raked over the coals by some boxing fans if Munguia had taken a bad beating and wound up getting hurt by GGG. Munguia has problems handling jabs, and Golovkin has one of the best in boxing. This fight had bad knockout written all over it.
The likely reasons why the Nevada Commission chose not to approve Munguia are due to his inexperience against world class fighters, his age and the fact that he fights in the 154 lb. division. Golovkin is a 3-belt world champion with massive amounts of experience both in the amateurs and the professional ranks.
Throwing a raw kid like Munguia inside the ring with Golovkin would have been asking for trouble for the Mexican fighter. We saw how even Saul Canelo Alvarez wouldn’t stand his ground and fight Golovkin, and he’s one of the best fighters in boxing. If a fighter like Canelo could do little more than run for 12 rounds, what do you think would happen to a guy with no mobility or experience like Munguia? It would be a massacre unless Golovkin carried him the way Floyd Mayweather Jr. carried Conor McGregor last year in August.
The best options for Golovkin’s May 5th fight are these fighters:
• Daniel Jacobs
• Demetrius Andrade
• Jermall Charlo
• Sergiy Derevyanchenko
• Billy Joe Saunders
• Gary O’Sullivan
Saunders, Jacobs, and Andrade are unavailable to face Golovkin on May 5th. O’Sullivan is available, but very few boxing fans are interested in seeing Golovkin fight him due to the Irish fighters’ limited talent. Andrade and Derevyanchenko are both available, but they are very difficult opponents for Golovkin to fight on just 4 weeks’ notice. Those are the type of guys that Golovkin would need a full 8-week camp to get ready to fight. The only guy that Golovkin can fight is O’Sullivan, and that’s a match-up that would be the equivalent of fan repellant. If Golovkin were fighting O’Sullivan in his home country of Ireland, then he could expect a huge crowd to turn-up to watch them battle, but not in Las Vegas. The fans are not going to go for that, and it’s an impossible sell on HB PPV.