Promoter Oscar De La Hoya, who is the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions has expressed enthusiasm for a potential match between Mexican super middleweight contender Jaime Munguia, who he co-promotes with Zanfer, and recent Canelo Alvarez opponent, John Ryder.
In the lead-up to a promotional event for a welterweight clash between WBO number-one contender Alexis Rocha facing Giovani Santillan, Oscar De La Hoya spoke to FightHubTV in which Munguia came up, and he stated the following.
“I love that fight with Ryder,” De La Hoya stated to FightHubTV. "Ryder gave Canelo all he could handle and he went twelve rounds with him. He hit him, busted him up. I think Ryder would be a perfect opponent, a perfect name, for Jaime Munguia."
De La Hoya sees this fight as an opportunity to measure Munguia against the top super middleweights in the division. Beyond that, Canelo Alvarez, whom De La Hoya used to promote before their contentious split in 2020, fought Ryder in his last bout. This would be a direct comparison to one of the best fighters in the world as De La Hoya believes that Munguia might even do better than Canelo did, as Canelo took Ryder twelve rounds in a homecoming fight in Mexico.
"It’ll be a difficult, tough fight," said De La Hoya. "Imagine if Jaime Munguia could knock him out, something that Canelo couldn’t do.”
In terms of the promoters Munguia, as stated above has a co-promotional agreement with Golden Boy, and Ryder, is promoted by Eddie Hearn's Matchroom. Despite not being with the same promoter, they share the same network - DAZN. So the bout seems very possible as distribution is often one of the biggest hurdles in a cross-promotion boxing match. The goal appears for the fight to occur in November or December, and not in late October as originally thought.
“There [are] some opportunities out there for Jaime, and we’re looking at November and December, most likely November, to bring him back,” De La Hoya said. “It has been difficult...either the date is too soon or too late. It’s always something. Hopefully, we can nail something down. We have a couple of names, other than Ryder. It’ll be interesting to see who’s gonna want to fight Jaime Munguia.”
Munguia, who has been belittled over the past few years as he went from being a world champion at the junior middleweight division to regressing back to fighting nearly a prospect level of competition after his fight with Dennis Hogan according to De La Hoya will be in meaningful fights from now on. With Canelo getting older, and possibly regressing over the past year and a half, De La Hoya seems intent on getting Munguia's name bigger and bigger, as he seems to feel that Munguia is ready for those big fights.
“We want him to fight for the world title already," said De La Hoya. "He’s ready. He’s there. He’s on a mission and that mission is to become world champion and hopefully one day fight Canelo.”
