By Aragon Garcia: Jamie Munguia isn’t worried about getting fights against superstars Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin. Even if the former WBO junior middleweight champion Munguia (35-0, 28 KOs) wanted to fight either of those two stars, he couldn’t.
Besides their respective carers having been ground to a screeching halt by the COVID 19 pandemic, they wouldn’t look in Munguia’s direct anyway. Canelo and Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) have planned fights that could take them all the way through 2021.
What the 23-year-old Munguia has on his side is age. He’s got a lot of time to eventually fight Canelo and/or Golovkin, and it works better for him if the fights come later when those two are older.
When those two do decide that they’re ready to fight Munguia, they could regret having waited so long. Floyd Mayweather Jr. was wise to fight Canelo when he was just 22, and not the fighter he is today.
Munguia: It’s better to fight Canelo and GGG later
“I am the youngest of all, I continue to grow, I continue to gain experience, I continue to become more energetic and for me, it is much better (to face Canelo or Golovkin in a year or two),” Munguía said to ESPN MX.
“I want to face the best. There has been talk of Golovkin, of Canelo, but there has been nothing concrete, it does not depend on me, but on the promoters. But I am not in a hurry.”
It might be a lot longer than a year before Munguia gets a shot against Canelo or Golovkin. Those two have a lot of hard fights ahead of them against the established fighters at 160 and 168. Canelo has already fought at 175 in beating WBO champion Sergey Kovalev, there’s no telling whether he might want to move back up in weight.
Canelo has three fights ahead of him for the time being:
- Billy Joe Saunders
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Ryota Murata
Once Canelo gets done with those fights, if he doesn’t take a rematch with one of them, he’ll likely face Callum Smith, Demetrius Andrade or Jermall Charlo. There are a lot of options out there for the 29-year-old Canelo, and he could be busy for years before he turns his attention to Munguia.
What hurts Munguia’s chances of getting a fight with Canelo or Golovkin is his lack of experience. Munguia hasn’t faced enough world level fighters for him to build a fan base with U.S boxing fans, and he’s looked average in his recent fights.
Munguia has struggled in 4 out of his last 6 fights against these fighters:
- Liam Smith
- Takeshi Inoue
- Gary ‘O’Sullivan
- Dennis Hogan
Jaime Munguia needs a new date
Munguia has been scheduled to fight on the undercard of the Canelo vs. Billy Joe Saunders fight on May 2, but with that contest having been postponed, he’s now looking at another option. The promoters for the Canelo-Saunders card still haven’t rescheduled the fight, and it’s probable that the fight will get pushed to the fall.
At this point, any new dates given for the Canelo vs. Saunders fight for the summer will have a good chance of being postponed due to the coronavirus, which still hasn’t peaked. Munguia is working with Fernando Fernández, Noé Álvarez, and Érik Morales.
“I didn’t exactly have a date, I was trying to fight on May 2 in the Canelo semifinal, but in reality, nothing was ever closed,” said Munguia. “We are waiting for a date.”
Munguia plans on continuing his training and waiting like everyone else for boxing to resume again. He’s now fighting at middleweight and is coming off of a grueling 11th round knockout win over Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan earlier this year on January 11.
What Munguia needs is someone a little better than O’Sullivan that can gain more experience against. An ideal opponent for Munguia would be one of these fighters:
- Maciej Sulecki
- Sergey Derevyanchenko
- Tueano Johnson
- Liam Williams
- Rob Brant
- Jeff Horn
- Chris Eubank Jr
- Gabriel Rosado
- Jorge Cota
