By Dan Ambrose: Matchroom Boxing USA promoter Eddie Hearn is interested in putting together a fight between WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (32-0, 26 KOs) and Jessie Vargas (28-2-2, 10 KOs). Vargas, 29, had been an option for Kell Brook up until recently for a fight at 154. Hearn is no longer looking to make the Brook vs. Vargas.
The next defense for Munguia will take place on April 13 on DAZN at the Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, in Mexico. If Vargas is the guy, then he’s not going to have much time to prepared for the fight, but it probably won’t matter. He’s going to be badly out-sized by Munguia. Brook is ranked #4 by the WBO at 154. He should be the one that’s challenging for a title, not Vargas. A predictable move will be for the WBO to rank Vargas in their top 15 at 154, because he’s not ranked at this time. It would look bad if Munguia fights a non-contender for his next title defense, because there’s a lot of contenders in the WBO’s rankings that want a crack at a title. Seeing Vargas, a fighter that’s not ranked and hasn’t won a fight since 2017, getting a title shot against Munguia might upset some of the contenders.
Munguia vs. Vargas is arguably a poor match-up. It’s in keeping with the opposition that Golden Boy Promotions has been matching against the young Munguia since he captured the WBO title last May with his win win over Sadam Ali. Vargas hasn’t won a fight since 2017, and he’s not someone that one would think of when they were looking at contenders worthy of a world title shot.
Given the lack of power from Vargas, Brook would stand a better chance against Munguia than him. The only question about Brook is whether he could get through the fight with the young 22-year-od Munguia without suffering another eye injury. Brook has had to deal with eye injuries effecting different eyes in his fights against Gennady Golovkin and Errol Spence Jr. Munguia probable hits as hard as Spence. Brook could fall apart against him if he were to take the fight, not that he’s shown any desire to do that.
Some fans believe that Brook is just going to sit and wait for Amir Khan to finish with his April 20 fight with Terence Crawford, and then look to make the fight between them. With the Brook-Vargas fight not taking place, it leaves former two division world champion Vargas available for a fight.
It’s hard to imagine Vargas challenging World Boxing Organization junior middleweight champion Munguia for his title, because he’s not much of a puncher. Vargas was a weak puncher even when he was fighting at 140. Five years ago, Vargas captured the WBA light welterweight title in beating Khabib Allakhverdiev by a 12 round decision to win belt in April 2014. Vargas barely won the fight. Some boxing fans think Vargas was given a gift decision over Allakhverdiev in the same way he was given a controversial 12 round decision win over Anton Novikov in August 2014.
Since Munguia won the WBO belt last year, he’s beaten Liam Smith, Takeshi Inoue, Brandon Cool and Liam Smith. You’ve got to give Golden Boy Promotions credit for keeping Munguia busy, but the opposition that they’ve been feeding him leaves a lot to be desired. Munguia looked terrible in his recent 12 round decision win over Inoue on January 26. That was a bad effort from Munguia, even though he won the fight.