By Aragon Garcia: WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (34-0, 27 KOs) is fighting in two months from now against an opponent still to be determined on January 11 in San Antonio, Texas.
Following Munguia’s last impressive title defense against Patrick Allotey last September, there was talk that his next fight would be in the middleweight division.
That may not happen though. The 23-year-old Munguia could make a vountary defense of his World Boxing Association title against one of the contenders in the WBO’s rankings.
Munguiao doesn’t have a mandatory challenger
Munguia doesn’t have a WBO mandatory yet. That’ll be determined later this month when #1 WBO Carlos Adames (18-0, 14 KOs) faces #2 WBO Patrick Teixeira (30-1, 22 KOs) in a title eliminator at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Munguia has looked special since winning the WBO 154-lb title last year in STOMPING Sadam Ali in 4 brutal rounds to win the belt in May 2018. The powerful Munguia, who is one of the biggest punchers in the sport, knocked Sadam down four times in the fight. He dropped him two times in round 1, and once in rounds 2 and 4.
Since winning the WBO belt, Munguia has successfully defended it an incredible FIVE times in beating Liam Smith, Brandon Cook, Takeshi Inoue, Dennis Hogan and Patrick Allotey. Munguia is easily the busiest of the world champions in boxing.
Munguia’s wins in 2019 have come against Takeshi Inoue, Dennis Hogan and Patrick Allotey. That’s not a bad list of challengers that Munguia has fought. He’s shown a lot of improvement with each fight that he’s had this year.
Jaime Munguia to be moving up to 160 soon
If Munguia does decide to move up to 160, he would be going after WBO champion Demetrius ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade. That wouldn’t likely happen right away though, because Munguia’s management will want him to get his feet wet at middleweight before he takes on the unbeaten Andrade (28-0, 17 KO) for his WBO belt.
Munguia’s critics want him to be rushed into an immediate tough fight in his first match at middleweight, and that’s obviously not the way to do it. He’s going to be brought along slowly in the same way superstar Saul Canelo Alvarez was brought along. Even boxing greats like Julio Cesar Chavez, Wilfredo Gomez and Salvador Sanchez weren’t thrown in with the best right away.
If Munguia does move up to 160 for his January 11 fight, then these would be great options for him:
- Jeff Horn
- Walter Kautondokwa
- Liam Williams
- Kanat Islam
- Immanuwel Aleem
- Hugo Centeno Jr.
- Anthony Fowler
- Brandon Adams