Jaime Munguia takes out Spike O’Sullivan in Eleven!
Former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (34-0, 27KO) made his middleweight debut against the rugged Spike O’Sullivan (30-3, 21KO). Many believed on paper this should have been a showcase fight to introduce the former champion into a new division.
O’Sullivan was once seen a s a serious contender maybe two years ago. That was before he was flat-lined in one round against former IBF champion David Lemieux. Fans were waiting to see a fire-fight but ended up watching a dud. In turn the loss removed O’Sullivan’s status as a respectable contender in one night!
NOT MUCH OF A SHOWCASE BOUT
This bout was anything but a showcase fight. Munguia is known to have defensive inadequacies that tend to leave him vulnerable the longer a fight lasts. His April 2019 bout with Dennis Hogan showed he could be out-witted and out-classed when taken into deep waters.
While this fight wasn’t as close as the bout with Hogan, O’Sullivan made a great account of himself giving as much as he took early in this fight. In addition, he showed Munguia to be extremely vulnerable to the chopping right hand. The Irish fighter landed this punch at will and at times, it got him out of trouble while being trapped on the ropes.
Moreover, O’Sullivan’s jab would stop Munguia in his tracks. That is when he threw it! However, as many vulnerabilities he would exploit on the former champion, he was getting read all the same and taken a beating in the process!
The good thing about Munguia is his power seems to transfer into the latter rounds enough to where his opponent’s can still be hurt. Furthermore, his conditioning is good enough to allow him to produce consistent volume throughout a fight.
While this doesn’t always necessarily translate into an effective game-plan, against O’Sullivan it did.
THE WAR OF…CONDITIONING
As the fight wore on, the former champion’s conditioning seemed to not take much of a hit. Meanwhile, the underdog would fade round after round. In the second half of the fight, it looked as if the biggest highlight for O’Sullivan was a point deduction in his favor after suffering a low-blow in the sixth round.
Besides this, it was all Munguia. By round nine, it seemed as if it was only a matter of time. O’Sullivan continuously took shots and found himself being pushed around the ring. The referee was being extremely generous as he allowed the underdog to take the kind of punishment many of other refs would have surely stopped.
Somehow, the fight made it to the eleventh round where the Irishman continued to take a lot of punishment. Finally, as Munguia would have scored the first knockdown of the fight, the corner of O’Sullivan threw the towel into the ring!
Munguia would make his entrance into middleweight with a victory. Not a showing he probably would have asked for, however, his confidence was not skewed. When asked who he would want next, he quickly stated he wanted the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Canelo Alvarez!
By: EJ Williams
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