By Jim Dower: Jaime Munguia won’t be fighting on the undercard of Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Rocky Fielding on December 15 despite Golden Boy Promotions having one fight left with him on his contract. Instead of fighting on Canelo’s card, Munguia, 22, will be headlining his own card on DAZN in January, according to Golden Boy Promotions vice president Eric Gomez.
“Gomez said Munguia would headline his own DAZN card in January,” said Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
One possible option for WBO junior middleweight champion Munguia’s January card on DAZN is #1 WBO Dennis Hogan (27-1-1, 7 KOs). The World Boxing Organization has made Hogan, 33, the mandatory challenger to Munguia, which makes him an ideal opponent for the hard-hitting Mexican talent to face. It’ll be ultimately Golden Boy Promotions’ call unless the WBO orders Munguia to defend against Hogan. There are bigger names that Golden Boy would likely be interested in putting in with Munguia. Whether that would be agreeable to Munguia’s co-promoters at Zanfer Promotions are not is unknown.
A lot of the top contenders in the WBO’s rankings are busy or will be coming off of fights in January when Munguia fights again. Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams (25-1-1 15 KOs) would be an ideal opponent Munguia if Golden Boy wants to match him against a notable opponent, but again, that would need to be agreed on Zanfer Promotions. The 28-year-old J-Rock is an experienced fighter, and it might be a little too early for Munguia to be fighting at this point in his career.
Munguia won the WBO 154 lb title on May 12, stopping WBO junior middleweight champion Sadam Ali in the 4th round in an impressive performance in Verona, New York. Munguia knocked Ali down four times in the fight in blowing out a good fighter. In Munguia’s first defense of his WBO belt, he defeated former WBO 154 lb champion Liam Smith by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 21 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Munguia knocked Smith down in the 6th round en route to winning by the scores 116-111, 119-108 an 117-110.
Munguia couldn’t knock out Smith no matter how hard he tried. It required Munguia to put more of his punches together, and he wasn’t able to do that. Canelo had knocked out Smith in the 9th round in 2016, but he was able to attack him more with speed and power. Smith wasn’t able to handle Canelo’s body shots and power upstairs. Munguia was considerably younger than Canelo was when he stopped Smith at age 26. Munguia was still only 21 hen he fought Smith. In Munguia’s second defense of his WBO title, he defeated Brandon Cook by a 3rd round knockout on September 15 on the undercard of Canelo vs. Gennady Golokin 2 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was a much better overall performance by Munguia than he’d shown against Smith.
Munguia will be heading to ESPN after his next fight in January. In fighting on ESPN, Munguia will get a lot of viability. However, it’s unclear who he’ll be able to fight on the network given that a lot of the top middleweights will soon be signed by DAZN, and a lot of the others are with Premier Boxing Champions on Fox and Showtime.