By Mike Smith: WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (32-0, 26 KOs) will be defending his title 1 week from today LIVE on DAZN against his #1 mandatory challenger Dennis “Hurricane” Hogan (28-1-1, 7 KOs) on April 13 at the Arena Monterrey, in Monterrey, Mexico. This fight could be the last one for the 22-year-old Munguia in the 154 lb weight class, because he’s going to be moving up to the 160 lb division to look for big fights against former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Saul Canelo Alvarez and Danny Jacobs on DAZN.
Those are the big three that Munguia will be targeting when he moves up in weight. Bringing up the rear is WBO champion Demetrius Andrade. Munguia can get an immediate title shot against Andrade by asking the World Boxing Organization to install him at #1 at middleweight to make him the mandatory. Munguia probably won’t do that though. He wants Golovkin and Canelo.
1 WEEK AWAY. 🔥 #MunguiaHogan
Watch on @dazn_usa 💥🥊 pic.twitter.com/4bEVpzykbB
— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyBoxing) April 6, 2019
Munguia has had a busy schedule lately. He last fought three months ago in beating Takeshi Inoue by a 12 round unanimous decision on January 26 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The fight was like watching Rockem Sockem Robots with the way that Munguia and Inoue traded big shots for 12 rounds. Munguia won the fight by the scores 119-109, 120-108 and 120-108.
“I have no one in mind right now. I’m simply going to keep fighting, keep fighting good opponents like Dennis Hogan, but that’s a question for my promoter Fernando Beltran,” Munguia said.
Hogan, 34, doesn’t possess the punching power to stand and trade with Munguia. That’s going to be a problem for Hogan, because he’ll need something to keep Munguia off him. The Australian Hogan is more of a volume puncher than a slugger, and that means he’s going to need to be able to stand in front of the hard hitting Munguia all night long to deliver those shots. Hogan will need to have a good chin to take the shots from Munguia for 12 rounds, because he’s probably not going to be able to stop the talented Mexican fighter. Hogan’s KO percentage is 23, which isn’t very good. Compare that to the 81% KO percentage that Munguia has going for him, and you get a pretty good idea of what kind of night it’s going to be for Hogan.
Hogan doesn’t have any names on his resume as far talented fighters in the prime of their careers. Hogan has only lost once in his eight-year pro career, but he’s only faced one good fighter in Jack Culcay during that time, and he lost to the guy. Munguia should easily beat Hogan. You can’t blame Golden Boy Promotions and Munguia for taking on such a weak opponent in Hogan, but it’s the WBO that decided to give him a #1 ranking. If the WBO had ranked Julian “J-Rock” Williams or Erislandy Lara, it would make a lot more sense, and the boxing fans would have something to watch. Would Munguia fight Lara or Williams if the WBO ordered him to? That’s the million question. Munguia himself wouldn’t have any qualms about fighting Lara and J-Rock Williams, but would Golden Boy give him the green light to fight those guys or would they tell him to vacate his WBO 154 lb title, and move up to middleweight to fight Canelo or GGG? Lara and Williams would be tough obstacles for Munguia at this early stage in his career because they are talented fighters that are in their prime.
“Every single fighter will do little things here and there that you can exploit,” Hogan said. “Even a fighter that doesn’t make many mistakes, there’s still a game plan you can work out to beat that fighter. So without saying too much about whatever holes Munguia may be making, we certainly have developed a game plan to be able to defeat his style,” Hogan said.
Hogan is going to need to box Munguia. If he tries to stand and fight like Sadam Ali did, he’s going to get knocked out quickly. Hogan doesn’t possess the kind of power to be able to stand up to Munguia’s shots. If Hogan stands and takes punishment, the referee will stop the fight if he’s getting hammered in a one-sided fight. Hogan will need to box and stay on the outside so that he doesn’t get hit as much by the big 5’11” Munguia. It’s not going to be easy to Hogan to keep from getting trapped by Munguia because the Golden Boy fighter is good at cutting off the ring.
Munguia still hasn’t hit his prime as of yet, and we don’t know whether he could hold his own against those fighters. The boxing fans saw the troubles Munguia had in beating Liam “Beefy” Smith last year on July 21. Munguia won that fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but he had a problems with Smith’s power, boxing skills, and his overall ring IQ. Munguia beat Smith with power, youth and a good old fashioned face pace that was too much for the former WBO junior middleweight champion to deal with. Smith maintained afterwards that he still felt he was the better fighter than Munguia, but he couldn’t handle the fast pace that he set in the championship rounds. Munguia maintained the same fast pace that he’d set in the first eight rounds of the contest. Smith couldn’t handle it when his energy stores started dipping in the ninth.
It’s going to be interesting to see who Golden Boy Promotions chooses to match the young Munguia up with if they have him make one more defense of his WBO junior middleweight title before he moves up to the 160 lb weight class. Matchroom Boxing USA promoter Eddie Hearn wants to try and setup a fight between former two division world champion Jessie Vargas and Munguia. Vargas (28-2-2, 10 KOs) has to win his fight this month against 38-year-old Humberto Soto (69-9-2, 37 KOs) on DAZN at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Vargas, 29, isn’t a great candidate to be fighting for a world title against Munguia, given that he hasn’t won a fight since 2017. Hearn putting Vargas in with Soto, a fighter who spent most of his career at super featherweight, and then using a potential victory over him as a launch pad for a world title shot against Munguia, it just seems unfair to the many contenders waiting in line for a world title shot in the WBO’s top 15 ranking at 154. Hearn also is interested in matching former IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook against Munguia as well. Brook is with Hearn’s Matchroom promotion, and he wants to set him up with a fight against Amir Khan, and get him a title shot against Munguia at 154.