Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs Jaimie Mungia (Fight Analysis)
By Ralph Rimpell
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 03 May 2024
On May 4, 2024, Cinco De Mayo weekend, boxing great and undisputed super middleweight (168lbs) champion (60-2-2, 39JKOs) Canelo Alvarez defends his titles against former junior middleweight champion Jaime Mungia (43-0, 34KOs). If Alvarez can defeat Mungia fight fans want to see him fight former undefeated WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez or current undefeated WBA “regular” super middleweight champion David Morrel. While Mungia is a good fighter who was champion in a lower division (154lbs), fight fans are hoping Canelo prevails against him so they can see Alavarez vs Benavidez or Alvarez vs Morrel.
On fight night what does Mungia have to do to defeat Alvarez?
The blue print to defeating Canelo was given by current WBA light heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol who was the last fighter to defeat Canelo back in May 2022. Canelo has difficulty with fighters with good boxing skills. Mungia must establish a good stiff jab to disturb Canelo’s rhythm. He must throw combinations and use good footwork to evade Canelo’s powerful shots. Mungia must not stand in front of Alvarez to trade shots, but he must stand and fight periodically to earn Canelo’s respect with his own punching power. Mungia must not be sloppy with his defense or risk getting knocked out with a good punch from Canelo. Mungia must be in superb condition to fight the fight of his life from the sound of the first bell until the last bell in the 12th so he can statistically outwork Canelo in all punch categories to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind who won the fight.
What must Canelo do to earn the victory against Mungia?
Canelo has good boxing skills and good punching power. The level of opposition that Canelo has fought is clearly better than the opposition Mungia has fought and will likely be evident when Canelo fights Mungia. Canelo will no doubt capitalize on Mungia’s lack of experience with elite fighters by overwhelming Mungia with combinations and power punches. Canelo will likely dictate the pace and not allow Mungia to find his rhythm. Muingia will do his best to evade Canelo’s power punches, but Canelo will do a good job cutting off the ring. Because of the height difference (Canelo 5’8, Mungia 6’0) Canelo will no doubt throw a lot of punches to Mungia body to prevent him from doing too much movement. Canelo must impose his will on Mungia as he has done on his previous 60 opponents he has defeated to reach that mark of 60 victories.
This Writer picks Canelo to score a TKO victory over Mungia in the 7th round of their fight at the T-Mobile center in Las Vegas this upcoming Saturday night.
Boxing Notes
Ryan Garcia is the talk of boxing once again after he defeated Devin Haney by scoring 3 spectacular knockdowns en route to a majority decision victory at Barclay center in New York on April 20, 2024. There was some talk that the match was not fair because Garcia was 3.2lbs over the contracted 140lbs limit which was what Haney officially weighed. Instead of the fight being cancelled because Garcia had not made the weight, Garcia agreed to pay Haney $1.5million. So in addition to the guaranteed fight purses that both fighters received, gate money, Pay Per View money, foreign tv rights money, etc. there was 1.5million reasons why the proverbial scale was balanced to make the bout fair…Boxing’s Pound for Pound #1 and unified welterweight champion Terrance Crawford will move up to 154lbs to challenge WBA champion Israil Madrimov on August 3, 2024 for what will be his 4th title in 4 weight divisions if he wins. Crawford made it clear he is only interested in lucrative fights at this stage of his career. He reportedly made $10 million fighting David Avanesyan in December 2022 and reportedly $20 million fighting Errol Spence last July 2023. It was rumored that Crawford wanted $20million for his next. It appears Turki Alalshikh of Saudi Arabia who has already made a name for himself in the boxing world has met Crawford’s price because Crawford is headlining (in my opinion) a never before seen boxing card where multiple boxing stars will fight at the BMO stadium in Los Angeles this summer…It will be interesting to see how Haney bounces back from the Garcia defeat. The Garcia camp stated they are not interested in a rematch. So will Haney remain at Junior welterweight? Or will he move up to welterweight? A good fight would be Rolando “Rolly” Romero vs Devin Haney as has been mentioned. Both fighters need a win at this point because both lost their last bouts. A “Rolly” vs Haney match would generate a lot of interest because “Rolly” would no doubt try get under Haney skin with the pre-fight hype. “Rolly” also has a good chance of winning as well. Or, Haney could also move up to welterweight (147lbs) to challenge IBF welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis now that Boots as signed with the Hearn who promotes them both. Let see what happens…
Contact writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com
***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history.
"I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.
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