Jaime Munguia, more disciplined, outpoints Bruno Surace in rematch

Jaime Munguia had waited six months to get his revenge against Bruno Surace, and it was that patience that enabled him to turn the tables on his previous conqueror.

Munguia boxed a disciplined fight on Saturday night to outpoint the previously unbeaten Frenchman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, winning by scores of 117-111 on two cards and 116-112 on the third. 

With the win, Munguia, now 45-2 (35 KOs), evened the score against Surace, now 26-1-2 (5 KOs), after Surace scored a shock sixth-round knockout of him last December in Munguia’s hometown of Tijuana, Mexico.

Munguia, a former WBO junior middleweight titleholder now competing at super middleweight, showed he could make adjustments under new trainer Eddy Reynoso, who is best known as the trainer for the first man who had defeated Munguia, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Instead of being a wild, all-offense machine like he was in the first fight, Munguia was measured in his attack, using his jab to press Surace while slowly breaking him down with body punching. 

Surace remained patient, perhaps too patient, as it appeared that he expected Munguia to throw as recklessly as he had in their first fight, and wasn’t sure how to approach the task if Munguia wasn’t creating opportunities for him.

Surace landed his best punch of the fight to that point with a left uppercut in the fourth round, but Munguia made sure to reclaim the initiative.

Munguia remained disciplined with his boxing through the middle rounds as he pressed Surace to the ropes with his jab, and he made sure to bring his left hand back to his face to avoid the counters.

Munguia had fully asserted his dominance by the 10th round, when a right hand to the body hurt Surace, who was struggling to find offense of his own. Sensing he was well behind in the fight, Surace picked up the pace in the 11th, looking to create offense of his own behind double jabs and then firing right hands. The aggression only served to open him up to the heavier shots from Munguia, whose overhand rights rarely landed cleanly but caught the judges’ attention. 

“It was really important for me to come back from that [defeat],” said Munguia, 28, after the fight. “More than anything we were working on our mentality, and that’s what you need to do after a fight like this. What we saw tonight is that I got the victory and Jaime Munguia is here to stay.” 

While Munguia has now avenged his most recent defeat, it’s unlikely he’ll try to avenge his first loss, given that he and Canelo now share a trainer. But Munguia says he’d be open to fighting other big names in the super middleweight division, like Edgar Berlanga and Caleb Plant.