Jamie Munguia vs. Gary O'Sullivan: It will TAKE the luck of the Irish

Particulars: Saturday, January 11, 2020 Golden Boy presents Jamie Munguia versus Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan in the middleweight debut for the combatants. Alamodome, San Antonio, DAZN. Fighters hail from Mexico and Ireland.

Background: Golden Boy is probably correct when they say enjoy this fight “while it lasts.” Munguia is the young fighter with the perfect record on paper. On the other hand, O’Sullivan is a 35-year-old pantomime villain - who has solid skills but no signs of a breakthrough in his career, but he does have a cool handlebar stash.

Munguia’s best assets are his promoter, body punching and youth. No mistake, he’s a born fighter, who knows the game inside-out, with power and capable of excellent movement which he eschews mostly, in favor of exchanges which he likes to initiate. Not a clever counter-puncher in my view.

Fighter’s Grades: (Speed, Power, Defense, Reach, Age, Stamina, Experience)

Jamie Munguia: B B C+ B A B B- (Average of all) B (3.0)

Gary O’Sullivan: B- B- C- B C- B- B- (Average of all) C+ (2.5)

Reality Check: I base grade cards off of what I perceive as the skill sets of elite fighters, current and past and apply against the fighters being analyzed. On that basis, much as Munguia is a consummate young professional, one has to ask what Golden Boy has in mind for him.

Power – In my opinion Munguia doesn’t possess great power in either hand. He’s not particularly fast, his defense NEEDS IMPROVEMENT, his competition is okay, etc. As Dennis Hogan told DAZN – Munguia is not a monster. Most felt Hogan clearly defeated Munguia in their fight in Mexico.

More importantly for Golden Boy, Munguia will never be a monster in my opinion. Due credit-he’s light years ahead of a club fighter. The negatives I see however, are – yikes, his chin is there to be reached.His defense needs a lot of work, urgently. Again - he can’t blow away the middleweight cream.

Interestingly, between exchanges Munguia carries his hands low and then picks them up as he reaches the outskirts of his opponent’s range. Seems to be safe enough, but Jamie’s better opponents do find his chin. For once, credit to DAZN chatterbox Brian Kenny, who noted that Munguia sat on the bottom rope in round 10 versus Takeshi Inoue, which was a knockdown not called. Dennis Hogan with a tiny KO rate staggered him.

When De La Hoya was a golden boy fighter not a promoter, he was world class in many ways. His tools alone made promoting him dead easy. His company has promoted Munguia capably but where they take him (he had trouble with weight in his last fights at Super Welter) and how, is hard to say.

The likeable O’Sullivan who declares himself a “handsome bastard,” has all the basic skills of a long-time pro, but no single attribute beyond ‘serviceable’ that I know of. He has some pop and if he taxes the TJ native’s chin repeatedly, an upset is not inconceivable, but VERY unlikely.

There is a different way forward for Munguia, which is to convert him to a far less aggressive outside fighter with day and night coaching to improve that defense. His good reach, youth and desire may make that possible. It will disappoint fans, but that’s the only path I see that may allow him to reach the stardom Golden Boy has groomed him for. He simply is not athletic enough to rule middleweight as a seek and destroy type.

Fight and Prediction: I hate scribes who waffle, but let me waffle this once! Factually, neither of these guys are great punchers and I can quite clearly see Munguia, if clocked by O’Sullivan sufficiently, converting this to a more ho-hum distance affair. Which O’Sullivan can’t win, too many cards and judges stacked against him. Regardless, I see no upsets and maybe not having to cut weight allows rough diamond Munguia to shine a bit brighter than at Super Welter.

Munguia TKO O’Sullivan, 8.