It has to be exasperating.
With every win that Jaime Munguia and Demetrius Andrade respectively produce, they speak with optimism about landing a big fight. Both have yearned for a bout against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin or Jermall Charlo only to come up empty with each fight on their wish list.
Perhaps it’s time that they look toward each other.
Munguia clashes with D’Mitrius Ballard at Monumental Plaza de Toros in Tijuana, Mexico on Saturday night, live on DAZN. If he’s successful, Munguia will improve his record to 39-0. Andrade made his fifth consecutive defense of the WBO middleweight title last November with a second-round TKO of Jason Quigley to improve to 31-0.
Feeling spurned out of a big fight with Canelo or Charlo himself, David Benavidez has recently expressed the desire to challenge Andrade. And just him putting that out into the atmosphere is promising toward a mega bout.
However, if talks don’t pan out there, Andrade vs. Munguia would carry plenty of intrigue itself. At 25, Munguia is young, hungry and a big enough puncher — with 30 of his victories coming by the way of knockout — to challenge 33-year-old Andrade’s smooth sweet science skills. The fact that Munguia hasn’t received a world title shot at 160 pounds yet would only up the ante and urgency of the fight.
Andrade vs. Munguia would give each boxer a big enough name to plump up his ring resume and then use that experience for leverage toward one of the aforementioned bouts that they’ve been gnawing at for so long.
The time at which Andrade and Munguia have been requesting a fight with Canelo, GGG and Charlo has spanned years now — with “Boo Boo” demanding a bout with any of the three for longer.
Time is wasting.
Andrade and Munguia have to look at other avenues to reach their goals. It’s time that they realize that creating synergy by fighting each other could be a way to unlock the super bouts that they crave.
But for the mere thought of that to take shape, Munguia must first clash with another undefeated fighter in the form of Ballard (21-0, 13 KOs). Munguia was originally slated to scrap with Ballard last April, before the latter suffered an injury, forcing the bout to be postponed.
Munguia wound up fighting Kamil Szeremeta in June, instead, pummeling him toward a stoppage at the end of the sixth round.
He followed that with a hard-fought unanimous decision over the always-game Gabriel Rosado in Novemeber to pull within the brink of his 40 professional victory.
As a former world junior middleweight champion who has made five title defenses, Munguia certainly is a proven warrior in boxing’s food chain. And that should entice Andrade to consider a bout.
Especially considering that the two have a shared hunger for more.
"The middleweight division is a very competitive division right now,” Munguia recently told DAZN News’s Erika Montoya. “There are great fighters. The fact that it's so competitive excites me. There are big challenges.”
He added in an interview with Fight Hub TV on Wednesday that he wants a fight with Andrade, but expects the current WBO middleweight titleholder to move up to 168 pounds. Nevertheless, if the fight should present itself at 160 pounds, Munguia wants it.
That’s a positive sign.
After all, an Andrade-Munguia fight might just be the final missing push to take the winner to the greenest pasture of his career.