Hall of Famer Erik Morales, the new trainer to WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia, says you’ll see a difference when Munguia (33-0, 26 KOs) defends against Patrick Allotey (40-3, 30 KOs) on Saturday night at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. DAZN will stream live. Morales replaced Robert Alcazar in Munguia’s corner after Jaime’s last fight against Dennis Hogan, which was not considered a stellar performance.
“In Jaime Munguia’s last fight, he was criticized a lot,” said Morales. “He showed vulnerabilities in his defense. However, he has a lot of potential. He’s young, strong and can hit very hard. We haven’t changed much. Rather, we’ve strengthened his combinations and focused on his offense. We’ve made some minor changes in his defense, but it will nevertheless make a difference.”
Munguia is Morales’ first high-profile protege. “We weren’t friends before working together, but we thought well of each other,” says Erik. “When we’d see each other, we would greet each other happily. Now that we are together, we have a very cordial relationship.
“When you bring a new voice into a corner, it can be tough at first. But when you find a way to listen and you see that things are going your way, it can be a calming experience. If there’s any advice that I’d give to Jaime, it’s to listen to his corner, pay attention and let us help him.”
What changes will you see in Munguia? Jaime says he’s been working on keeping his hands up, moving his waist and using lateral movement.
Boxing Hall of Famer Oscar de la Hoya also shared his observations.
“I like what I see in Jaime Munguia now that he has the legendary Erik Morales in his corner,” said the Golden Boy. “He’s having him sit down more on his punches. Before, he was on his toes too much. Now he has him sitting on his punches and throwing combinations. At the same time, he is moving his head and being smart, so I like what I see.
“I’m expecting Jaime to box a little bit, but I also expect him to be more aggressive and throw combinations. Fighters today don’t throw as many combinations. They want to knock people out with one punch. But it’s not the first punch that knocks you out-it’s the third or fourth punch. I like Jaime is being more aggressive and throwing more combinations.”
Promoter Fernando Beltran stated, “I see Jaime Munguia is improving his defense and on not throwing punches for the sake of throwing them. He’s thinking more in there. He’s improving a lot.
“Erik Morales has a lot to prove as a trainer. As a former fighter, he has a lot of knowledge, which he can now pass down to other fighters who are coming up. They get along very well. We are very happy to have put them together and that they are getting along so well. We’re also happy with Jaime’s improvement. We just saw him moving his head in sparring and throwing a lot of punches. He’s not jumping as much. I really like it.”
He needs to come up a bit slow. He could be a beast in near future but there’s some monsters at MW now. Sure they’re happy they didnt get that GGG fight
In the near future? He’s a “champion”, he should be fighting the best NOW!
Not that impressed from Allotey’s resume. But the Allotey that will show up this weekend will probably be better than the Jeff Horn that showed up for fighting Michael Zerafa. Zerafa should get a shot at Munguia after this, considering Zerafa is like Munguia as far as weight is concerned, he’s a middleweight, but can still barely make 154. As or Allotey, his first 30 fights, he fought a bunch of novices and journeymen, he fought 6 of the same fighters twice. (Kofi Manu, Abdul Majid, Paul Achaab, Gabriel Adoku, Fuseini Ahmed). I would take those 12 fights off of his record, he is more like 34-3. And he is 6-1 (2 KOs) over the past 3 years, so that is not too bad. Allotey probably has a better shot now to defeat Manyuchi now than he did when they were back at 147. Allotey would like to be a world champion like Richard Commey. So here is Allotey’s chance to make boxing have 2 World champions from Ghana.
There is something twisted behind this matchup, and all is pointing to fears of Munguia being badly exposed as just one hit wonder. Jessie Vargas vs Munguia was a fight almost done. Well discussed and agreed, but at the last minute, from Munguia’s side, came the request to make the fight at 156. Vargas rejected this, and the fight fell through. Barely a week later Patrick Allotey is announced as the guy to fight Munguia instead.
Now, here is the twisted stuff: Why requested Vargas 156 and then with Allotey is announced as a world title for Munguia’s 154 belt?
Is this fight is at 154 or 156? If is scheduled at 156, this is not a world title fight, but if in fact it’s, who is approving this?
IMO Vargas is a better fighter than Allotey and someone realized that he was too much for Munguia to handle, and aborting the figh was the best way to save him of being exposed.Also, later he could be served as a sacrifice lamb to Canelo Alvarez in a by far more profitable fight in Mexico I guess
Munguia will never have the draw of Canelo, he’s mestizo. Mexicans prefer their “hero’s” white and not mestizo
Mestizo ?!! WTF ??!! Erick Morales ? Juan Manuel Marquez ? Bullshit.. Mexican people like champions when they fight hard and give they all in the ring…
I really like this team. They can go far.
Yeah, with Oscar De la Hoya on his team….he’s “unstoppable”. ♂️♂️♂️
Wow, you’re just on here hating. ODlH is DAZN and the promoter for both Munguia and Canelo, so he’s on both of their teams. And to say Jaime will never be as big a draw as Saul is pure ignorance.
he has a lot of improving to work on period.
— My impression of Morales’ ring IQ was when the one armed Jesus Chavez fought him off for 12 hard rds.
Post fight interview revealed Morales was surprised to find out he was fighting an injured fighter.
I am glad to see munguia is working to improve his overall boxing game. He seems to be a very respectful, but humble and hungry young fighter…Although thete is very good competition out there for him, he will give the competition a lot of problems. Good Luck, Jaime..