The first significant boxing event of 2020 goes down on Saturday, Jan. 11, when former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia moves up to 160 pounds to take on Gary "Spike" O'Sullivan from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, live on DAZN.
Munguia (34-0, 27 KOs) captured the WBO gold in May 2018 when he stopped Sadam Ali. The 23-year-old made five consecutive title defenses, but the task of getting to the 154-pound limit was starting to take a toll and affecting his performances inside the ring. After plowing through Patrick Allotey in September, Munguia decided to jump up to the division led by unified champion Canelo Alvarez, IBF titlist Gennadiy Golovkin and WBO titleholder Demetrius Andrade.
"I'm excited to be moving up to 160 pounds where they say that some of the most important fighters in boxing are," Munguia said in a statement. "I have a very tough fighter in front of me, Gary O'Sullivan, who's very tough. If I want those bigger fights, then I have to demonstrate that I'm worthy of that against this guy, so I have to do my best in order to rise up in the rankings."O'Sullivan (30-3, 21 KOs) gets another chance to secure a victory over a high-quality opponent. To this point, the 35-year-old has come up just short. He got dominated by two-division champion Billy Joe Saunders in July 2013, suffered a seventh-round knockout to Chris Eubank Jr. in December 2015, and got decimated in less than one round to David Lemieux in September 2018, on the same card as Munguia.
"Jaime Munguia is a great fighter," O'Sullivan said. "I'm very motivated by this challenge. He's a young world champion, undefeated. For many, this is the stuff of dreams to come to his own backyard and fight the undefeated champion of the world. I've never felt the more motivated in my well career. I look forward to putting on a show for January 11. I'm going to prepare very hard for this fight, harder than ever, and come January 11, I'll be ready for war."This is a robust test for Munguia in his middleweight debut. Some might call O'Sullivan a gatekeeper, but anyway you slice it, Munguia is going to get a chance to show the boxing world how he fights without having to cut an excessive amount of weight. (Source: DANZ)
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