Jaime Munguia rebounded from his loss to Canelo Alvarez with a KO win over Erik Bazinyan. Peter Klein breaks down what lessons he learned and why he was impressed with Bazinyan as well.
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00:00Alright, we will start with Jaime Munguia, who wasn't perfect, but got the job done
00:11on Friday night in his win over Banzanyan.
00:15Which by the way, I just want to state, no one actually came after me, but you know,
00:20you work at a place with a text line for a decade, you start to anticipate people making
00:24fun of you about things.
00:26I know I've kind of butchered the pronunciation of Banzanyan, and I know I've said it differently
00:30the entire fight week, and now again.
00:34I do want to say, this is a cat who, his name was being said differently on the broadcast
00:42on Friday.
00:43They would go to Kriegel, the guy who's doing the corner reporting while also scoring
00:49the fights, which seems tricky to do, but whatever, he's very talented at what he
00:55does.
00:56He's saying it differently than the play-by-play guy who was saying it differently than Tim
00:59Bradley who was doing the color commentary.
01:00Like, fuck that, how am I supposed to know?
01:03So anyway, the Canadian Banzanyan did, I think, a pretty good job.
01:08His jab was giving Munguia issues early in the fight.
01:11Munguia very clearly, like, Munguia, I like Munguia a lot.
01:16And Jaime is one where he can fight at range pretty well, but his bread and butter is getting
01:22inside and just, with great speed and veracity, fucking you up.
01:27That is what he likes to do.
01:29Work the body, land some good stuff to the head, but get it in tight and some of that
01:32phone booth fighting, which is quite something for someone who has the pace that he has.
01:36And Munguia was still coming forward, but Banzanyan early on was doing a good job of
01:40literally beating him to the punch and getting that jab going, keeping Munguia at range,
01:45kind of dictating, not necessarily the pace, because I do think the pace was one that Munguia
01:50was comfortable with, but keeping the range where Banzanyan wanted it to be.
01:55And that was giving him an edge and actually winning him quite a few of these.
01:59The overall story of this fight is actually how close it ended up being.
02:05I didn't think Banzanyan was on Munguia's level.
02:08And I do think, like, by the time it wrapped up here, I have my notebook here.
02:12Where did I...
02:13I found it in the wrong notebook, right.
02:14Ah, it's under...
02:15I'm using it as a mic stand today.
02:17But I had, I think, Munguia up one round, going into that tenth, and then he gets the
02:24knockout win.
02:25So Banzanyan did a really good job of dictating where the fight was, and again, not so much
02:31the pace, but just kind of controlling things with what he was able to do, and limiting
02:35what Munguia wanted to do.
02:37But as the fight went on, Munguia got better.
02:39And I do think there's a bit of that maturity that we talked about, and we'll get to that
02:42in a second here.
02:43But the thing that really paid off was the investment in those body shots.
02:46And that's why I call it the investment.
02:50More often than not, unless you are, like, one of the great whatevers, one shot to the
02:55body isn't going to stop a fight.
02:58Isn't even going to change a fight.
03:00And so, we don't see it so much in MMA, because you only have three rounds, and you've got
03:03fifteen minutes.
03:05And if you want to set something up like this, like, Munguia was actively losing rounds while
03:09working on this body strategy.
03:11And so, in MMA, great, you can do that in a three round fight once.
03:16And then all of a sudden, okay, well, now it's a third round, good thing I invested,
03:19I'm down to nothing, and I need to now kill this guy.
03:22In boxing, when you have twelve rounds to work with, you can take a couple rounds.
03:26And if you've just been working on the body, that investment continues to pay off.
03:29And that's what happened here.
03:30That investment in body shots really started to pay off as this fight went along.
03:35It didn't necessarily slow Ban Zhenyan down, because he was there the whole way.
03:40But Ban Zhenyan wasn't throwing a ton of power punches anyway.
03:44And the ones that he was throwing started to have a little less snap to them.
03:48It was a little less, woof, and a little more, ooh, going on.
03:52And that is an over-exaggeration.
03:53Again, the caveat on all of this, every fighter I have ever talked about on this show could
03:59beat me up so quickly.
04:02This is just, I enjoy watching the fights, and I enjoy breaking them down.
04:05And so what you saw was some of the snap being taken off of those punches, and when you're
04:09not getting a ton of power from those anyway, that really does start to allow you to dictate
04:14the kind of game plan that Munguia wanted to do.
04:17And that's what happened in this fight.
04:18The jab was giving him some problems early.
04:20And there was a bit of a counter game that was coming from Ban Zhenyan as well, that
04:23was, again, keeping Munguia from really unloading in the ways that he wanted to.
04:28And even when Munguia was getting close, once there was a bit of an exit, Ban Zhenyan was
04:33landing a couple pretty good shots, usually.
04:35And that was allowing him to not necessarily steal the momentum, but not let Munguia get
04:40fully comfortable and fully into that role that we have seen him get on against some
04:44other fighters.
04:45But again, there's less snap to it, and it's just not really working out as this goes along.
04:52And then, there becomes a moment where, okay, the jab is there, but Munguia isn't as concerned
04:58about it.
04:59Because okay, now the power's gone, now I can start to walk you down.
05:01And that is where Munguia really starts to tee off.
05:04He's landing to the body well, again, continuing that investment.
05:08Now he's landing some power punches to the head.
05:10Now he's landing in bunches.
05:11Now he's crowding Ban Zhenyan.
05:13And now, this fight is taking place in the area that Munguia wants it to.
05:19Brilliant stuff from Munguia, kind of assessing what's going on.
05:22How can I manage this?
05:25Because jabs are inherently a little bit difficult to just get inside on, right?
05:30You have to find your way to get in there, and Ban Zhenyan was doing a good job.
05:33And so Munguia, recognizing, okay, that this is not going to be something I can just walk
05:37through, I need to try to limit this, in a way.
05:40And he did, and then he was able to get inside, and that's where the finish does come.
05:43He rocked him a couple rounds earlier, and then in the 10th, he lands some real good
05:47combination that gets him on roller skates, and then puts the final coffin nail in, and
05:52wraps this thing up in really impressive fashion.
05:55But overall, Ban Zhenyan showed really well.
05:57I don't, again, shout out to the Canadian, love Al Quebec, I don't view him as a the
06:03sky's the limit sort of a fighter.
06:06I don't think that's, okay, well, now this was something he can learn from, and he is
06:09going to ride to the top of the mountain, at 168 pounds, and reign supreme for years
06:14and years and years as the undisputed champion.
06:16And we're all going to be saying, Canelo who?
06:17At some point?
06:18That's not going to be this kid.
06:19He's good, though, and I am interested in seeing him again, against some high-ish level
06:27guys.
06:28Like, the dude that, um, Mugambi, that Caleb Plant just fought, that'd be a fun fight!
06:34168 pounds?
06:35They both fought within a week?
06:36Why not?
06:37That would be, I think, a really fun fight, and a really interesting test for both of
06:39those guys.
06:40I don't know who either of them are attached to.
06:42I would assume that one being on DAZN and Amazon, and the other being on ESPN, just
06:47for their more recent fights, might pose a problem, but I also don't think either of
06:51them are at the point where that would be such a great holdup, by any stretch of the
06:57imagination.
06:58Overall, though, I do think Munguia matured in this fight.
07:01He was comfortable falling behind to figure out what he needed to do.
07:05He assessed the situation, and he got to where he needed to be successful.
07:09This was, I think, a good kind of next, uh, start to the next act for Jaime Munguia.
07:15He kind of did what Canelo did to him, and figured it out that way.
07:21I don't know if this is, again, the best strategy going forward, but it did, it worked
07:26for him, and it showed some maturity, and it still showed the class level that he is
07:30in, talent-wise, and so I still think good things are ahead for Jaime Munguia.