By Jeff Aranow: WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (32-0, 26 KOs) has been ordered by the World Boxing Organization to defend his title against mandatory Dennis Hogan (28-1-1, 7 KOs) in his next title defense, which is scheduled to take place on April 13 at the Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.
Munguia and Hogan’s promoters have 30 days to negotiate the fight before a purse bid.
The 33-year-old Hogan, who comes from Ireland and lives in Australia, isn’t a big puncher, and he’s not likely going to be able to stand up to Munguia’s shots nearly as well as his last opponent Takeshi Inoue. Munguia had huge problems beating Inoue last month by a 12 round decision on January 26. The fight was very competitive with Munguia taking a lot of punishment from the 29-year-old Inoue throughout the match. Munguia ended up winning the fight by the scores 119-109, 120-108 and 120-108. Most boxing fans felt the scores were too wide, and that the fight was closer than that.
This isn’t a fight that Munguia’s co-promoters at Golden Boy and Zanfer Promotions will resist, as it’s a similar class of opponent as the guys that Jaime has been defending his WBO title against since he won the belt last May.
The top fighters at 154, Jermell Charlo and Jarrett Hurd, have called out Munguia. Golden Boy wants to let Munguia slowly pick up experience before they put him in a unification fight. However, Munguia doesn’t plan on staying at junior middleweight too much longer before moving up to middleweight to fight WBA/WBC champion Saul Canelo Alvarez. Munguia wants that fight, as do Golden Boy Promotions. There’s money to be made in Canelo vs. Munguia fight.
Since winning the WBO belt in beating Sadam Ali last May, Munguia has beaten Liam Smith, Brandon Cook, and Takeshi Inoue. The one constant among those three challengers is a lack of talent and punching power. Munguia hasn’t had to deal with one of the talented contenders like Erislandy Lara, Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams or Kell Brook. If Munguia holds onto his WBO title for much longer, he’s going to have to defend against one of those guys. Right now, the WBO is ranking the arguably less talented Hogan above those guys. Inoue was surprisingly ranked ahead of those fighters as well, which is somewhat strange.
Williams, Brook and Lara are clearly guys that should have been ranked ahead of Hogan and Inoue just based on past accomplishments. Munguia has it good so far with the WBO’s rankings of fighters, but it won’t be that way forever. If Munguia keeps the WBO belt for another year or two, he’ll eventually be forced to fight a talented guy, and then it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with him.
A lot of boxing fans see the 22-year-old Munguia as someone that is too young and raw to be holding down a world title. But with the WBO’s rankings of beatable contenders above the arguably talented guys, Munguia hasn’t had to deal with any of the lions in the 154 lb division that could potentially beat him.