Jaime Munguia vs. Takeshi Inoue targeted for Jan.26

By Dan Ambrose: Jaime Munguia (31-0 26 KOs) says he’ll be defending his WBO junior middleweight title two months from now against #3 WBO Takeshi Inoue (13-0-1, 7 KOs) on January 26 at a venue still to be determined in California or Texas. Either of those locations will be good for Munguia. He’s quickly becoming a very popular fighter after just a handful of notable fights.

If everything goes as planned, Munguia says he wants to fight four times in 2019. Of those four fights, Munguia hopes to face Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Further, Munguia is targeting the other 154 lb champions for a unification fight. Ultimately, it’ll be up to Munguia’s promoters whether any of those fights happen. Given that Munguia’s next two fights are expected to be against Inoue and Dennis Hogan, it’s going to make it difficult for him to accomplish all of his goals for 2019.

Provided everything works out well in the 22-year-old Munguia’s favor against Inoue, Jaime’s next fight after that will be against his #1 WBO mandatory challenger Dennis Hogan (27-1-1, 7 KOs). Munguia has a very good chance of winning his next two fights against Inoue and Hogan by knockout. Those are not high caliber 154 lb fighters despite both being ranked high by the World Boxing Organization.

Sanctioning bodies have their own often bizarre reasons for ranking fighters with seemingly very talent at the top of their rankings. We’re seeing that with Hogan and Inoue. At best, those two are fringe level contenders, but they’re clearly not top three material. That’s good for Munguia that the WBO has Hogan and Inoue ranked so high, as gives him a couple of softballs that are being lobbed to him so that he can hit them out of the park.

This will be Munguia’s third defense of his WBO junior middleweight title that he won last May with a 4th round knockout victory over Sadam Ali. Munguia has since defended his WBO title successfully twice in beating Brandon Cook and Liam Smith.

Just last May, Munguia was in the process of negotiating a fight with former IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. The Nevada State Athletic Commission failed to sanction the fight due to Munguia having never fought at 160, and his lack of experience as a pro. The Nevada Commission likely saved Munguia from losing badly to GGG. By not facing Golovkin, Munguia was free to face Sadam Ali last May, and he did a number on him in knocking him out in the 4th round.

Munguia’s promoters at Zanfer still need to confirm the choice of opponent before the Inoue fight is official for January 26.

The 22-year-old Munguia wants to accomplish bigger things with his boxing career. He won’t get a chance to do that until he advances past the lower level opposition like Inoue and Hogan towards the quality fighters in the 154 lb division. Munguia needs to show that he can hang with the top junior middleweights. Like it or not, there’s still the perception among many boxing fans that Munguia isn’t on the same level as the best 154 lb fighters like Jarrett Hurd, Erislandy Lara, Jermell Charlo, Kell Brook and Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams. The way for Munguia to prove that he can mix it with those guys is for him to start fighting them. The guys that Munguia has been using as opposition have been the beatable fighters in Liam Smith and Brandon Cook. Those fighters aren’t the best at 154. Although both were ranked high by the world Boxing Organization at the time Munguia fought them, they’re fringe level contenders when one condenses the junior middleweight division into one top 15.

Right now, the 154 lb division is spread out among the four – IBF. WBA, WBC & WBO – sanctioning bodies. With their being so many sanctioning bodies, you get a lot of weaker fighters ranked high in the ratings of some of these ranking organizations. That’s good for Munguia, as it means he can hold onto his WBO title for a longer period of time before he’s finally forced to face a talented contender at 154, but it’s bad for the boxing fans. They end up seeing Munguia beating up on lesser fighters like Smith, Cook, Inoue and Hogan.

“I think he is a good opponent, unbeaten, Japanese,” Munguia said to ESPN Deportes. “We know that the Japanese always go with everything; they are like us Mexicans. They die in line. We have to be careful with him, but we have studied it well and I think I can win.”

Inoue, 28, is unbeaten, but he’s been facing domestic level opposition his entire four-year pro career in Japan. Inoue has yet to step it up against a halfway decent fighter. He’s not even been facing high level journeymen opposition. It’s been all obscure domestic level opposition that Inoue has been dining on in Japan. For that reason, you can’t know what he’s capable of when he gets in their with a young knockout artist like Munguia. Just from looking at clips of Inoue’s past fights, he doesn’t appear to have the kind of talent that will enable him to beat or even be competitive with a guy of Munguia’s class.

These are Inoue’s last six opponents:

– Yuki Nonaka

– Niwat Kongkan

– Riku Nagahama

– Koshinmaru Saito

– Akinori Watanabe

– Chan Ho Lee

Most fighters start out there career facing the same type of lower level opposition that we’ve seen from Inoue. But where things differ is that other fighters typically aren’t given a high ranking at #3 and given a world title shot after just 14 fights as a pro, especially if all they’ve faced are journeymen level opposition like we’ve seen from Inoue. It’s a bad look on Munguia’s part that he’s picked out Inoue as his opponent instead of showing the boxing world what he’s made of by giving solid contenders like Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams, Erislandy Lara, Carlos Adames or Bakhram Murtazaliev a shot at his WBO junior middleweight title.

“I think and I hope 2019 will be a year with many successes, maybe I would like to unify,” Munguia said. “We will be talking to my promoter, but I plan to do four fights, including Canelo and Golovkin, with great pleasure.”

Munguia vs. Canelo would be a good fight for 2019. Golovkin will likely be looking to take on top guys like WBA champion Rob Brant and Canelo Alvarez in 2019. GGG wants a third fight with Canelo after the first two ended in controversy. Golovkin would open himself up for massive criticism if he fought Munguia instead of someone like WBC interim middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, IBF champion Daniel Jacobs or WBO champion Demtrius Andrade. The World Boxing council ordered GGG and Jermall to face each other with the winner getting a crack at Canelo. Nothing has happened with that. Golovkin is looking in another direction for his next fight when he does return to the ring.