The Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia Undercard was announced today for their May 4th headliner, and it was a disappointing mix of three Mismatches without the one name that fans had hoped would be on the card, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
Why Boots Ennis Matters
Fans don’t want to pay a premium PPV price for a lackluster headliner without a high-caliber talent like Boots Ennis in the chief support bout to make up for what the main event lacks.
The event organizers could have eliminated the three bargain-bin undercard fights they added today and just put Boots Ennis vs. Keith Thurman as the sole fight, and that would have made fans happy.
This event, which will be shown on Amazon Prime Video and DAZN PPV, will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Watching the mismatches on the May 4th undercard is about as appealing as getting a root canal.
Boots Ennis is the fighter that PBC needed to put on the Canelo-Munguia card to hit out of the park, given the low amount of interest from many fans in paying to watch this event due to Munguia being a fighter with a totally inflated resume without any talented opposition.
The “Who Cares?” Undercard
- Marios Barrios vs. Fabrian Maidana: Barrios (28-2, 18 KOs) defends his WBC interim welterweight title against the ten-year pro Maidana (22-2, 16 KOs), who has fought lower-level opposition his entire career and isn’t ranked in the top 115 by any of the sanctioning bodies.
- Brandon Figueroa vs. Jessie Magdaleno: Figueroa defends his WBC interim featherweight strap against former WBO super bantamweight champion Magdaleno, who is coming off a loss to Raymond Ford.
- Eimantas Stanionis vs. Gabriel Maestra: Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs) will make a defense of his WBA welterweight title against 37-year-old, two-time Olympian Maestra (6-0-1, 5 KOs).
While some fans on social are mildly interested in seeing these fights, they’re not enthusiastic about any of them, and view these match-ups as junk they have to put up with while they wait for the main event between Canelo and Munguia. That’s not a good thing for the organizers.
When they have a lesser headliner like Canelo vs. Munguia, they need a good undercard to get fans interested, even if it’s just one outstanding fight. In this case, none of these fights are worthy of being on PPV, and there’s nothing to get excited about for boxing fans that are the fence deciding whether to order this event or not.