Munguia’s Moment: De La Hoya Bets on Youth Over Experience

By Sean Jones - 04/09/2024 - Comments

Promoter Oscar De La Hoya expects Jaime Munguia to fight the superstar Canelo Alvarez twice after he dethrones “the old lion” on May 4th in their headliner at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Time Takes Its Toll

De La Hoya feels that the 27-year-old Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) is ready to use his youth to defeat Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs), who turns 34 in July and no longer has all his claws from his many ring wars during his 9-year professional career.

Munguia was only eight years old when Canelo began his career in 2005, and he hasn’t had all the difficult fights he’s had, thanks to the careful matchmaking done for him by De La Hoya.

Was Munguia Built to Beat Canelo?

Hopefully, Oscar’s soft matchmaking for Munguia stops after his fight with Canelo because there won’t be any reason to protect him any longer, and he will have gotten the fight that his career has been created for.

Many believe Munguia’s whole purpose was to be protected until he got the Canelo fight, which he is about to get. Munguia’s career has been carefully orchestrated from the beginning to get the lucrative fight against Canelo.

After that, there will be no point in protecting Munguia because nobody else is nearly as popular as Canelo for him to fight. So, that’s even more reason for Munguia to give it all he can to defeat Canelo on May 4th.

This is it for Munguia. He’s off his leash and must make the best of it because if he gets blown out of the water by Canelo, there isn’t anyone else for him to collect a mountain of dough fighting.

“I’m super excited we have Munguia fighting Canelo because I think it’s changing the guard,” said promoter Oscar De La Hoya to ABN Sports Media about Jaime Munguia taking on the older Canelo Alvarez for his undisputed super middleweight championship on May 4th.

The Rematch Clause: A Safety Net

It’s time. History always proves that and shows that the younger guy, when he’s coming up and he gets his opportunity, he’s going to dethrone the old lion. That’s history in boxing,” said De La Hoya.

There’s no guarantees that Munguia will get a rematch with Canelo if he beats him. Look at at Dmitry Bivol. He beat Canelo, but the Mexican star moved on without trying to avenge the loss. I think Canelo would rematch Munguia because he’s too beatable for him not to.

“Imagine Munguia beating Canelo. There would have to be a rematch because there’s a rematch clause. Canelo wanted a rematch clause,” said De La Hoya.

 

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