Top Rank promoters say “Jaime Munguia will be back” following his sixth-round upset loss to Bruno Surace last Saturday night at the Estadio Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico.
The promotional company recently signed the super middleweight contender Munguia (44-2, 35 KOs) to a multi-fight contract, and his loss to the non-contender Surace (26-0-2, 5 KOs) was obviously not what they expected.
Promoter Bob Arum, the head of Top Rank, hasn’t said what the plan is to bring Munguia back from this loss. Losing to this kind of fighter puts the 28-year-old Munguia in a tough position where he’s going to need a rebuild. That’s not why Top Rank signed him.
They were obviously hoping to ramp him up for another big-money fight, like his match against Canelo Alvarez earlier this year. He can forget about that now.
Rematch Potential
Ideally, Top Rank needs to set up a rematch with Surace because this isn’t the kind of loss that Jaime can walk away from without his career taking a fatal hit. The Munguia-Surace rematch would attract a lot of interest from people, if only just to see if Surace will finish Jaime once and for all.
Munguia is already perceived as a fake fighter created to make money against soft opposition. If he loses the rematch with Surace, that could be the end. It’s unclear how many fights Munguia has left with his multi-fight contract with Top Rank.
Whatever it is, they need to get the most value they can before it ends because he’s not worth rebuilding with more soft opposition and then re-signing. Munguia never fought anyone good during his 11-year professional career until getting the Canelo fight, which he lost by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision on May 4th.
It would take Top Rank too long to rebuild him for a second fight against Alvarez, and if he can’t beat second-tier fighters like Surace, he can’t be protected enough for a rebuild job.
France’s Surace, 26, exposed Munguia’s poor defense in their fight, repeatedly tagging him with right hands and ultimately knocking him out with a hard shot in the sixth.
