De La Hoya wants to promote Jaime Munguia

By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya is hoping to work a deal to co-promote WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (29-0, 25 KOs) with the Mexican knockout artist’s current promoter Fernando Beltrán of Zanfer. De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions company is promoting the 21-year-old Munguia’s next fight against mandatory challenger Liam ‘Beefy’ Smith (26-1-1, 14 KOs) on July 21 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Adding Munguia to the Golden Boy Promotions stable will give De La Hoya a future player in the middleweight division. I think it’s important that De La Hoya find someone with the size, power and the gas tank to mix it up with the best at 160, because the 5’8” Saul Canelo Alvarez’s future in the division is looking shaky now.

De La Hoya adding Munguia to Golden Boy Promotions’ stable will potentially give the company a future star that can take over now that their main star Saul Canelo Alvarez’s future is uncertain due to his poor showing against Gennady Golovkin last September and his two subsequent positive tests for clenbuterol. Munguia has size to fight at middleweight in the future. Right now, Munguia holds the WBO 154 lb. title. If Munguia looks as good beating Liam Smith as he did in stopping Sadam Ali in the 4th round on May 12 in Verona, New York.

Ali was completely blown out by Munguia in getting dropped four times in the fight. Munguia should have been given credit for a knockdown of Ali in round 3, but the referee Gary Rosato ruled it a slip. If Munguia beats the 29-year-old Liam Smith in similar fashion, he could be on his way to stardom in the U.S. Munguia received a huge amount of attention from the American boxing fans for his win over Ali.

The way that Munguia beat Ali is unlike what we would have seen from Canelo Alvarez. Munguia totally overpowered Ali in the fight. The combination of raw punching power and the pressure that Munguia put on Ali was impressive to behold. Munguia looks like the real thing. All he needs now is to keep winning and he could become a household name in the U.S. in the same way Canelo Alvarez has. The advantage the 5’11’ Munguia has over Canelo is his natural size, power, stamina and his relentless manner of attacking his opponents. Munguia doesn’t need constant rest breaks the way Canelo does, and he’s more than big enough to fight on the outside against the taller fighters in the 154lb division.

“Munguía will be a very successful fighter, I will be promoting his next fight on July 21 with Liam Smith in Las Vegas and we are talking to see if we can make an agreement with Zanfer Promotions to promote his career,” De La Hoya said to ESPN Desportes.

It’s up to Zanfer if he wants to let Golden Boy co-promote Munguia to turn him into a star in the U.S. It would be interesting to see if De La Hoya can make Munguia a permanent fixture in his Golden Boy stable, because I think he’s going to need to have someone as a replacement for Canelo if his career goes belly up after he faces Golovkin in their rematch on September 15. Canelo will likely lose that fight. It won’t get better for Canelo when/if he faces the other tall middleweights like Jermall Charlo, Ryota Murata, Billy Joe Saunders, Demetrius Andrade and Daniel Jacobs.

Munguia’s opponent for July 21, Liam Smith, is an experienced fighter and former WBO 154lbchampion. Smith lost his WBO title to Canelo by a 9

th round knockout two years ago in September 2016 in Arlington, Texas. Smith has since bounced back with victories over Liam Smith [x 2] and Marian Cazacu. Smith fought well in both of those fights, but those were lesser fighters. Smith has always shown himself capable of beating the lesser fighters. He didn’t look good when he finally stepped it up for the first time against Canelo. Smith got tired after round 4, and was knocked down in rounds 5, 7, 8 and 9. If Munguia can do a better job of blasting out Smith than Canelo did, we could see a new star. Canelo definitely struggled in the first four round with Smith’s power, high work rate and pressure that he was putting on him.

Smith’s game plan for the Canelo fight was for him to use a high pressure, high volume attack to take advantage of Canelo’s inability to fight hard without the need for rest breaks. What Smith didn’t account for was his own gas tank to run out after the 4th round. Once Smith gassed out in the 4th, Canelo took over and dropped him in the 5th. If Munguia can stop Smith earlier in the fight than Canelo, it would be a big win. Beating Sadam Ali wasn’t a big deal because he recently moved up from welterweight, and he didn’t have the size or the punching power to compete with Munguia. The 5’9 ½” Smith is a natural junior middleweight, who rehydrates into the 170s for his fights in the 154lb. weight class.

Munguia was briefly the backup option for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin for his May 5th fight after Canelo pulled out of the contest. However, the Nevada State Athletic Commission failed to approve Munguia for GGG to fight due to his inexperience at 160. Munguia had never fought in the middleweight division before. The Nevada Commission did Munguia a big favor by choosing not to approve him for the fight against GGG. Had the Commission agreed to let Munguia fight Golovkin, he likely would have been knocked out. Golovkin does well against fighters that come right at him the way Munguia likely would have. By the Commission not agreeing to let Golovkin fight Munguia, it paved the way for the Ali-Munguia fight to take place. This move worked well for Munguia. He not only avoided a knockout loss to Golovkin, he looked great in stopping an undersized Sadam Ali in the 4th round. It’s possible that Munguia could have given GGG problems, because he looks like a better fighter than Canelo right now.