Jaime Munguia and the Back Door To Elite Status

Jaime Munguia is a real fighter.

He acts like a fighter. He reacts like a fighter. He pushes forward like a real fighter. And this Friday, on ESPN, he’ll be back in the ring, looking to do what a real fighter does against someone like Erik Bazinyan, who has yet to be truly tested at the world class level.

Munguia’s “realness” was affirmed this past May, when he put in a spirited losing effort against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez– despite clearly being steps behind the future first ballot Hall of famer in both skill and level of experience.

In that fight for the undisputed super middleweight title, Munguia would be dropped in the fourth round and outboxed down the stretch, but he never signed himself over to defeat. He never stopped trying and, unlike Alvarez’s recent opposition, he never fought merely to survive. He was there to win, regardless of how overmatched he was.

A Real Fighter…With Real Question Marks

But there were a lot of question marks about the Tijuana native coming into that Canelo fight. There were legit questions as to whether he had developed as far as he was going to develop and if, ultimately, he would never become anything more than an entertaining low first-tier/high second-tier fighter.

Some of those questions have kinda, sorta been answered in the Canelo fight, but one only gets so much boxing street cred by losing in a better-than-expected manner.

Munguia burst on to the world scene back in 2018, as a baby-faced 21-year-old, when he blew away Sadam Ali in four rounds to take the WBO junior middleweight title. Ali was just five months removed from an upset of Miguel Cotto and was favored to beat Munguia handily– mostly because Munguia was an unknown entity whose only claim to fame at that point was as a rejected opponent for Gennadiy Golovkin, deemed too green and unaccomplished by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for such a dangerous step up in class.

As things would turn out, though, Munguia, who was a late replacement for the UK’s Liam Smith, was simply too big and strong for an Ali who was really just a smallish welterweight with a few added pounds tacked on.

The four-knockdown HBO Boxing blowout turned heads. Fans/media, who expected nothing from Munguia previously, were now singing his praises as an emerging new star.

Expectations were created, but after some rough patches against Liam Smith in his next fight, it became clear that Munguia’s rise to stardom would have to be tempered with some smart matchmaking and a load of patience. For all his willingness and size/strength, he was still green and lacking in certain key developmental areas. With Golden Boy becoming his co-promoter in late 2018, the competitive push forward was pulled back and opposition got increasingly tailor made, matched to Munguia’s strengths.

Rather than develop, however, Munguia seemed to grow stagnant. He actually began to slip in some areas. After three years of being spoon fed on the boxing main stage as a DAZN contract player and moved up to the easier-to-make middleweight division, he was actually regressing as a fighter. And, despite some signs of improvement in a win over Gabriel Rosado in 2021 and a few flashes here and there, he didn’t appear to be substantially any better entering his tenth year as a pro than he was back when he beat Ali, five years into his career.

Munguia’s Maturity

But 2023-2024 changed a lot about Jaime Munguia. The mechanical/technical/tactical mistakes are still there, whether trained by Erik Morales (his trainer from 2019-2022 and made his trainer again for this Bazinyan fight) or Freddie Roach (who worked with him for the John Ryder and Saul Alvarez bouts). He’s still too eager to exchange, still too careless with his defense, still too easy to pull off his game plan. The difference between now and then has to do with confidence and maturity.

The 27-year-old Munguia went to war with Sergiy Derevyanchenko in June of 2023. In January of 2024, he battered, dominated, and eventually stopped a battle-tested John Ryder, who went the full twelve with Canelo the previous year. And it’s likely that his resolve and confidence will be even greater coming into Friday’s showcase, a little over four months removed from giving Canelo a real fight on the biggest stage in boxing.

Through the developmental setbacks and hiccups, Munguia has never stopped being an affable, likable kid with a fan-friendly style. Those features will make him a bankable presence for as long as he’s fighting at anything resembling a top level.

The confidence and maturity earned from going to war these last few fights, though, might end up making him the kind of elite fighter most felt was no longer a possibility.