By Sean Jones: Oscar De La Hoya is serious about putting together a fight between Jaime Munguia and Dmitry Bivol for June or July at a catchweight of 170 pounds.
De La Hoya says he’ll be talking to Munguia’s co-promoter Fernando Beltran of Zanfer Promotions and putting a fight together with WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) for the summer.
That would be a big step up in class for the 26-year-old Munguia (41-0, 33 KOs) to go from fighting obscure fighters like Gonzalo Gaston Coria, Jimmy Kelly, and D’Mitrius Ballard to taking on Bivol, who is top of the class at 175.
Bivol would be a difficult fight for anybody, particularly against a novice like Munguia, but De La Hoya is kidding himself if he thinks he’s going to get Gennadiy Golovkin to give him a title shot.
“Munguia is ready for anybody. He wants to fight anybody at 160, 168, and he’ll even do a catchweight at 170,” said Oscar De La Hoya to Fight Hub TV when asked if Jaime Munguia is ready to fight the big names at 160 like Gennadiy Golovkin.
“So if you hear about a possible Bivol fight in the works or talking about it, that’s a major, major fight that can take place for Munguia.
“I’m actually having a conversation in a bit when [Fernando] Beltran [of Zanfer Promotions] gets here from Tijuana to talk about Munguia and see what the next step is. But ideally, I would love to see Munguia fight Bivol later on this year in June or July and then get him a major fight. He deserves it,” said De La Hoya.
Oscar will have to act fast if he wants to set up a fight with Bivol because Canelo Alvarez wants to fight him in September, and he’s interested in facing Artur Beterbiev. Promoter Eddie Hearn would like to match Bivol against Joshua Buatsi.
The guys that De La Hoya wants to match Munguia up against at 160, Golovkin and Jermall Charlo, aren’t going to give him a shot, and the one fighter that would gladly face him, WBO middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, he won’t fight.
Oscar has got to do something because Munguia has become a joke in the eyes of many boxing fans for facing exclusively weak opposition his entire 10-year professional career and having 41 fights against nothing nobodies.
Munguia has got one of the most inflated resumes in boxing, and you got to wonder how much longer his promoters will allow this to go on before they put him in with a live body.
