By Chris Williams: WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (33-0, 26 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a 12 round majority decision victory over mandatory Dennis Hogan (28-2-1, 7 KOs) in a fight that was surprisingly competitive on Saturday night on DAZN at the Arena Monterrey in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The judges scored it 115-113, 116-112 for Munguia, and 114-114. Boxing News 24 scored it for Hogan by a 115-113 score. This wasn’t a good performance by Munguia, whether he and his promoters at Golden Boy want to admit it or not. Munguia was exposed tonight.
Neither fighter was down in the fight, but Munguia looked like he was hurt on a couple of occasions in the championship rounds. You can’t call it a robbery, but it looked as if the 34-year-old Hogan did enough to deserve the victory. He was making Munguia all night, and hitting him with the cleaner, more effective shots.
Hogan didn’t have the same power that Munguia showed, but his shots were snapping his head sideways when he would land. It looked like Munguia was tired, hurt and not taking the shots well. To his credit, Munguia came out strong in the 12th round, and fought well in the first half of the round. Hogan came on strong in the second half of the round to control the action and land some nice shots.
“I know I won the fight,” an upset Hogan said afterwards. “I’m so disappointed. I came here on good faith. Everyone knows [I won]. It’s bad for boxing. If there’s a rematch offered, I’ll accept it straightaway. His power didn’t phase me at all. I knew in his eyes, he knew he was losing. I was landing more throughout the fight. Everybody knows,” Hogan said.
Hogan landed 123 of 493 for a 25% connect percentage, according to CompuBox. Munguia connected on 122 of 671 for an 18% connect percentage. Munguia was obviously the busier guy, but he was missing constantly and getting countered by the more accurate shots from the Australian based Irishman.
“I wanted to give the victory to my people,” Munguia said. “He would hit me in the head, head-butt, hold, and not let me get into my rhythm. I was getting frustrated. I also got a little bit tired. I think the difficulty of me getting to 154 might be a problem. It could be. I’ve got to talk to my promoters at see what will happen,” Munguia said.
The fight was close enough for their to be a rematch. Whether Munguia’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions are open to having a second fight is the big question. You’d like to think they would, but it’s possible they’ll have Munguia move on and defend against the likes of Jessie Vargas or possibly move up in weight to 160. Munguia looked tired tonight, and was missing a lot. That could be due to his problems getting down to 154. He didn’t look strong in the second of the fight.
