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WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia returns to the ring against mandatory challenger Dennis Hogan on April 23, 2019 at the Arena Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico.
This title defense was supposed to be headed for a purse bid last March 4, 2019 but the WBO cancelled the purse bid after both sides announced that they had agreed on a deal.The fight will be held in Mexico and will be streamed live via DAZN in the United States.
Jaime Munguia is one of Mexico’s up and coming boxing stars. The lanky fighter won the WBO junior middleweight championship by knocking out Sadam Ali in May 2018. Since winning the belt, Munguia has made three successful title defenses. His next assignment will be his mandatory challenger Dennis Hogan.
Munguia is 6-0 tall with an undisclosed reach while fighting out of the orthodox stance. The 22-year old Mexican sensations has an undefeated record of 32-0 with 26 knockouts or an 81% knockout rate. In his most recent outing, Munguia toyed around with an overmatched Takeshi Inoue and won a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to keep his WBO 154-pound title.
Jaime Munguia vs Dennis Hogan Odds
Ireland native Dennis Hogan fights out of Australia and is the WBO’s mandatory challenger for the junior middleweight division. Hogan has won six consecutive fights since suffering a setback against Jack Culcay, when the two fought for an interim junior middleweight title bout in Germany back in 2015.
Hogan stands 5-8 and has a reach of 68.5 inches while fighting out of the orthodox stance.The Hurricane has a record of 28-1-1 with 7 knockouts to his credit. In his most recent fight, the 34-year old from Ireland defeated Jamie Weetch to retain the WBO intercontinental super-welterweight championship.
Massive Underdog
Hogan is a massive +1100 underdog in this bout but that’s what makes the Irish Hurricane a threat in this matchup: he is fighting without pressure. Meanwhile, Munguia will be under all sorts of pressure, from defending his belt to fighting in front of his countrymen. However, it’s under those big fights and bright lights where the young and talented Munguia has thrived.
Munguia knocked out Sadam Ali in 2018 to claim the WBO junior middleweight belt. He’s defended it thrice, all successfully and in his last bout, he won an exciting but one-sided decision over Takeshi Inoue at the Toyota Center in Houston. Prior to that, Munguia scored a 3rd round technical knockout of Brandon Cook at the Canelo vs GGG 2 undercard a the T-Mobile Arena.
This is going to be an interesting fight because while Hogan doesn’t have the same punching power as Munguia, he is a tough as nails fighter who is aggressive and who loves to come forward. However, that’s going to be a problem against Munguia who hydrates at around the mid-170s and will enter the ring perhaps like a Gennady Golovkin. Hogan is 5-8 which is the size of a welterweight so you can just imagine the disparity in size here. I’m not sure how Howard hurts Munguia here. But I can be sure what happens the other way around.
Who Wins?
Munguia is a knockout artist and this fight, we should see him go all out given that he is facing a small opponent who doesn’t have the punching power to hurt him. Tough as Hogan is, I don’t think he is going to last the distance if Munguia wants to end this fight early. However, if the Mexican chooses to go for the kill, I have no doubt he can end this fight early.
Like the Inoue title defense, this bout was set up to prepare Munguia for the bigger elites in the 154-pound division like Jarrett Hurd, Jermell Charlo, Tony Harrison and Erislandy Lara. But that won’t be the case. The way I see this, the fight is going to be a mirror of the Inoue fight. This is Munguia’s fight to lose but he knows that bigger fight lie ahead after this. It’s going to be another learning experience, although he won’t learn much. I’m picking Jaime Munguia to beat Dennis Hogan by knockout.
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