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Mike Coppinger, ESPN
Jaime Munguia and John Ryder will meet in a super middleweight bout on Jan. 27 in Phoenix, it was announced Saturday.
Munguia (42-0, 33 KOs), a native of Mexico, is coming off a career-best victory, a unanimous-decision win over Sergiy Derevyanchenko in June. Munguia, 27, scored a 12th-round knockdown to pull out the decision in a leading candidate for ESPN’s Fight of the Year.
Now, Munguia will enter what shapes up as another slugfest.
England’s Ryder is coming off the biggest bout of his career, a spirited unanimous-decision defeat to Canelo Alvarez in May.
Ryder (32-6, 18 KOs) was floored in Round 5 and suffered a broken nose against boxing’s top star but was able to land some effective blows down the stretch in Alvarez’s homecoming bout in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Munguia, ESPN’s No. 6 boxer at 168 pounds, was a titleholder at 154 pounds and is hoping for his own crack at Alvarez next year.
Ryder, ESPN’s No. 4 super middleweight, defeated former champion Daniel Jacobs in 2022 in a career-best win.
Source: www.espn.com