Jaime Munguia (40-0, 32 KOs) overcame adversity where it wasn’t expect during tonight’s DAZN main event with Jimmy Kelly (26-3, 10 KO). While Munguia was largely expected to just blitz through Kelly, he encountered real difficulty dealing with Kelly’s boxing tactics and movement. Kelly was successful in the opening rounds with luring Munguia into traps and leading with his left hook, splitting the first round on my unofficial scorecard for BLH.
But then the tenor of the fight changed quickly in the fifth round after the was a break called by the referee to address some wrestling in the clinch between both fighters. Immediately after they resumed action it seemed like Kelly momentarily lost focus and Munguia landed a hard left hand that staggered and dropped Kelly to the canvas. Kelly would get up but never really had his legs back under him, and was subsequently dropped twice more before the referee stopped the fight at the 2:57 minute mark of Round 5.
Munguia admitted that Kelly was a difficult fighter to deal with considering his style, but said he maintained confidence that he’d get the job done with plenty of time left in the fight even if he felt he was down on the cards. In the post-fight interview Munguia said he’s ready to drop back down to 160 or take a fight at super middleweight.
Munguia vs Kelly highlights
Undercard highlights and results
Oscar Duarte TKO-8 Mark Bernaldez (2:05)
In the night’s co-featured bout, lightweight Oscar Duarte (23-1-1, 18 KOs) put on a good performance to stop tough veteran Mark Bernaldez (23-6, 17 KOs) in eight rounds of action. It was clear from the opening round that Duarte was just too strong for Bernaldez, and after after shaking him up early in the fight he would continually stalk and strafe Bernaldez with power shots.
To his credit, Bernaldez showed a tremendous amount of resilience to stand up to the numerous punches he was taking, but in the eight round the referee finally felt like he had see Bernadlez take too many clean shots and he stepped in to stop the fight at the 2:05 minute mark.
Yokasta Valle UD-10 Lorraine Villalobos (100-90, 100-90, 100-90)
In the second televised fight of the evening, Yokasta Valle (25-2, 9 KO)successfully defended her minimumweight title by whitewashing Lorraine Villalobos (5-4, 2 KO) over 10 rounds of action to take a unanimous decision win on three scores of 100-90. Despite the one-sided scores, this fight was highly entertaining as Villalobos was willing to let it all hang out even when getting the worst of it, and showed the heart to withstand 10 rounds of punishment while never giving up on herself.
Carlos Ortiz KO-5 Evan Sanchez (2:59)
Junior middleweight Carlos Ortiz (13-5, 13 KO) came up big in tonight’s main card opener. Set up to be essentially be food for a prospect in Evan Sanchez (11-1, 6 KO), Ortiz put up a much stiffer than expected challenge, warring it out with Sanchez from the opening round. As the next few rounds progressed it looked like Sanchez was starting to get the better of things and control the fight better, even though Ortiz was able to occasionally land some clean shots.
But then in the fifth round Ortiz landed a flurry of punches starting will a perfectly-timed counter left that dazed Sanchez and Ortiz jump on the opportunity to put his man down and out, knocking out Sanchez in a stunning upset. Even in the post-fight interview Ortiz expressed his own surprise in what transipired but says he’s thirlled with the result.