Former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (36-0, 29 KOs) got the win on Friday night in stopping middleweight contender Tureano Johnson (21-3-1, 15 KOs) in the sixth round after he suffered a cut lip. The match was shown on DAZN and it took place at the Fantasy Springs in Indio, California.
In addition to the cut lip, Johnson also had a cut left eye that was giving him problems. The cut might have forced a stoppage in the later rounds if it had worsened, which it probably would have given the shots that Munguia was connecting with.
It wasn’t the best way for the 24-year-old Munguia to win, but he was fortunate that he did get the victory because Johnson was giving him all he could handle.
In watching the fight, it was impossible to know which was the heavily hyped Golden Boy fighter because the contest was fairly even going into the sixth.
Munguia, 24, connected with a right uppercut in the sixth that cut Tureano’s lip. It was a bad enough cut to where the match needed to be stoppage after the round had ended.
With a cut like that, you can’t stop the bleeding the way you would with a cut eye. It’s going to bleed until it’s sewn up.
Tureano was the busier fighter, but Munguia landed the bigger punches throughout the entire fight. The judges had Munguia ahead by a wide score through the sixth. Munguia was stunned by Johnson in the fourth round, but he did well to keep fighting.
You can second guess Tureano’s decision to brawl with Munguia. Maybe if Tureano had chosen to box Munguia the way Dennis Hogan had, he’d have had a better shot at avoiding injury and winning.
Tureano doesn’t have a long reach, and it might have worked against him if he tried to fight Munguia on the outside all night. That’s not to say Munguia has great boxing skills because he doesn’t.
A good boxer like Demetrius Andrade would likely embarrass Munguia and shut him out completely. It’s a good thing that Golden Boy isn’t pushing to force a title shot for Munguia against Andrade because that would end badly for him if they were to fight right now.
Munguia is ranked #1 with the WBO at 160, but Golden Boy will probably wait until Andrade moves up to 168 before they let Jaime fight for that title.
Live fight results:
The highly talented welterweight Rashidi “Ellis (23-0, 14 KOs) had to battle hard to beat Alexis Rochard (16-1, 10 KOs) by a close 12 round unanimous decision to claim the WBC International Silver welterweight title.
The judges scored it as follows:
WBO light flyweight champion Elwin Soto (18-1, 12 KOs) holds onto his title with a victory over six-time world title challenger Carlos Buitrago (32-6-1, 18 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision.
The scores were all over the place with the judges scoring it 119-109, 117-111, and 115-113. Buitrago came to fight and he made Soto earn his win tonight.
Marlen Esparza UD 8 Sulem Urbina
Pre Fight:
DAZN will be showing middleweight knockout artist Jaime Munguia (35-0, 28 KOs) and Tureano Johnson (21-2-1, 15 KOs) in the main event on Friday night in an important match for both fighters.
The fight is scheduled for 12 rounds, but it’s expected to end early with one of the two scoring a knockout.
Munguia has shown a good chin during his seven-year pro career, but he’s not faced any puncher as of yet aside from Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan, who had him hurt last January. Tureano can punch almost as good as O’Sullivan, but he’s a far better fighter than him.
Johnson is now trained by Andre Rozier, the same trainer that his former conquerors Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Curtis Stevens were trained by.
Munguia, 24, and Johnson, 36, will fight it out on a DAZN card that starts at 8 pm ET from the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California.
Golden Boy Promotions is presenting tonight’s card, and they’re hoping that Munguia shines against Tureano, who has other ideas. The 2008 Olympian Johnson isn’t going to let Munguia use him as an opponent to showcase his skills to the boxing world.
Tureano plans on handing Munguia his first career defeat and taking his place as the #1 ranked contender in the WBO’s rankings at middleweight. Munguia is also ranked #2 with the WBC and #9 IBF.
Those high rankings were given to Jaime following his 11th round knockout win over Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan last January.
Those sanctioning gave Munguia the high rankings more on what he did as a junior middleweight than what he accomplished in beating the 36-year-old O’Sullivan (30-4, 21 KOs) earlier this year on January 11th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Tureano will be a much better test to show what Munguia has got for the middleweight division.
Munguia needs to his game in a major way for him to take his career to the next level. He looks stiff, robotic, has no head movement, and is too easy to hit.
Looking at the progress that Munguia has made in the last five years, he’s not showing any real improvements in his game despite being helped by boxing great Erik Morales. All the things that Morales is trying to teach Munguia, he’s not showing them in his fights as of yet.
Munguia vacated his WBO junior middleweight title recently after five successful title defenses. If Munguia could still comfortably make weight for the 154-lb division, he likely would still be the WBO champion.
Munguia moved up because he’s outgrown the division, and it was only a matter of time before he would lose the WBO belt. Jaime was lucky to keep his WBO title in his fight against Dennis Hogan last year in April, as he had a lot of problems with this opponent. That was arguably a gift decision that the judges gave Munguia in his win over Hogan.
The way that Munguia struggled against a pedestrian level contender like Hogan showed that it was time for him to move up to 160.
Munguia v. Johnson undercard:
- Rashidi Ellis vs. Alexis Rocha
- Elwin Soto vs. Carlos Buitrago
- Marlen Esparza vs. Sulem Urbina
- Bektemir Melikuziev vs Alan Campa
- Lamont Roach Jr vs. Neil Tabanao
- Tristan Kalkreuth vs. Tyler Vogel
