By Sean Jones: Jamie Munguia is close to agreeing to a deal that will have him fighting on the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin undercard for September 15 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, according to ESPN Deportes.
Munguia’s promoter Fernando Beltrán of Zanfer Promotions is working on a co-promotional deal with Golden Boy Promotions. The news announcement of the Munguia deal will be revealed by Golden Boy when it’s completed. There’s still no word about the opponent for Munguia.
There’s talk of Munguia being positioned in the co-feature. If that’s the case, you can expect a good opponent for him to defend his WBO title against. Golden Boy has the means to get Munguia a good opponent. Kell Brook or Amir Khan would be ideal. However, their promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing will likely not give the green light for either of them to face a puncher with the kind of power that Munguia possesses.
Munguia, 21, is coming off of an impressive 12 round unanimous decision victory over former World Boxing Organization 154 pound champion Liam Smith on July 21. This was Munguia’s first defense of his WBO title that he won on May 12 in stopping Sadam Ali in the 4th round.
“We have a very good relationship with Óscar de la Hoya. We help each other in different things and if it is to help and lead the boys’ careers we will continue,” Zanfer said to ESPN Deportes about Munguia. ”We are in talks for Munguía to fight on September 15.”
Golden Boy wants to help transform Munguia into a star in the same way Canelo Alvarez has risen to stardom under their help. It’s important that Munguia be matched against the right opposition to show off his talent and enormous punching power. There are some good contenders in the WBO’s rankings that would be ideal for Munguia if Brook or Khan don’t want to step up to the plate o challenge for a world title.
These are some good options for Munguia to fight on the Canelo-GGG 2 card on September 15: Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams, Tony Harrison and Liam Williams. Those three are all sluggers that will stand and fight Munguia. He won’t have to go looking for those three on the night to entertain the boxing public on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We can keep making alliances.” Munguía is a proud fighter of Zanfer and we hope we can make something out of them for September 15,” Zanfer said. ”It would be a very good platform for Jaime to make a new defense of his super welterweight championship of the World Boxing Organization.”
Munguia has seen his popularity surge since beating Sadam Ali. Many boxing fans had never heard of Munguia until he stopped Sadam Ali recently. Before that Munguia had been considered as a possible option for GGG on May 5 earlier this year, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission rejected that fight. They felt that Munguia didn’t have the experience to fight Golovkin. This turned out to be a good deal for Munguia, because he was able to challenge Sadam for his WBO 154 pound title instead of taking a very dangerous fight against Golovkin.