By Dan Ambrose: The WBC had two purse bids scheduled on the same day for September 17th between IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev & #1 Marcus Browne and #1 middleweight contender Jaime Munguia and #2 Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
It’s believed that Golden Boy Promotions will choose to have former WBO junior middleweight champion Munguia (37-0, 30 KOs) bypass the WBC 160-lb title eliminator against dangerous former three-time world title challenger Derevyanchenko (13-3, 10 KOs) in favor of taking on super middleweight contender Gabe Rosado next.
Given the talent and experience of Derevyanchenko, Munguia might not be ready for a fighter of his caliber now. Hence, Golden Boy is moving Munguia towards an arguably after targeting against Rosado, who isn’t known for throwing many punches.
Munguia will have a better chance of beating Rosado than he would the body-punching Derevyanchenko, who might be a little too advanced for the Golden Boy fighter.
Munguia, 24, and Rosado (26-13-1, 15 KOs) shared the same card two months ago on June 19th at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.
The 35-year-old Rosado pulled off a surprising third round knockout win over Bektemir ‘The Bully’ Melikuziev in a fight that was getting literally pummeled in the first two rounds by the heavy-handed Russian.
Rosado was dropped in the first round by Melikuziev, and he appeared to be on his way to losing the contest when he caught him with a perfect right-hand counter in the third that knocked ‘The Bully’ cleanout. It was a miracle stoppage, as Rosado was getting beaten up badly by the Russian fighter, and he appeared to have no chance of winning.
For his part, Munguia stopped former Gennadiy Golovkin victim Kamil Szeremeta in the sixth round in a one-sided fight. That wasn’t much of a fight.
Szeremeta was coming off a seventh round knockout loss to Golovkin last December in a total mismatch.
While Munguia’s boxing fans quickly pointed out that he stopped Szeremeta faster than GGG did, if you saw the fight with Golovkin, it looked like he was taking it easy on the little-known Polish fighter to extend the fight, which sadly shown on DAZN.
This was a match that Golovkin had been eying for two years, and it’s unclear why. It was such a poor one. DAZN executives likely would have preferred to see Golovkin fight a live body like Demetrius Andrade, Jermall Charlo, or Chris Eubank Jr. Instead, they get the Szeremetaa mismatch.
The first is between the undefeated Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs) and Browne (24-1, 16 KOs). This is a fight that will actually happen, as the Russian fighter isn’t about to vacate his WBC title to avoid fighting the once between Browne.
Beterbiev knocked out challenger Adam Deines in the 10th round last March in a so-so performance from the two-time Russian Olympian. Before that fight, Beterbiev had been out of the ring for a year and a half since stopping WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk in the 10th round in October 2019.
Not surprisingly, Beterbiev looked incredibly rusty from inactivity, which led to Deines hanging around a lot longer than he should have. Deines looked like a fighter that didn’t belong inside the same ring as Beterbiev when the Russian fighter was letting his hands go.
Marcus Browne (24-1, 16 KOs) picked up a win against Denis Grachev in his last fight in April, winning a 10 round decision. That was the 30-year-old Browne’s first fight in a year and a half since losing to Jean Pascal by an eighth-round technical decision in August 2019.
Beterbiev is someone that Canelo Alvarez is interested in fighting when he moves up to 175 soon. The Mexican star Canelo wants to unify the 175 lb division by beating Beterbiev, Dmitry Bivol, and Jose Smith Jr.