A ‘fight of the year’ candidate was witnessed on Saturday night as the Pride of Tijuana, and former world champion, Jaime Munguia (42-0, 33 KOs) secured a very close decision victory against tough as nails veteran Sergiy Derevyanchenko (14-5, 10 KOs) at Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA.
In front of 7,647 rowdy fans, the equally matched boxers delivered an action-packed fight that brought the fans to their feet from the first round. Both fighters firing powerful shots to the head and body as they tried to establish dominance in the early rounds.
There were moments in the fight where both fighters were shaken up. During the fifth round, Munguia was barely able to stay on his feet as Derevyanchenko battered him with heavy punches and appeared to be on the verge on a knockout win.
Munguia was able to recover and continued to go to war with Derevyanchenko as the fight played out.
The twelfth and final round was a turning point on the scorecards, as Munguia scored a heavy knockdown with a body shot to the liver. He was unable to finish Derevyanchenko off, with the Ukraine fighter using his legs and defensive abilities to stay away for the remainder of the round.
The 10-8 final round was the difference maker in the outcome, with the official scores being 115-112, 114-113, and 114-113.
“I am very happy with the fight. It was a great victory, we made some mistakes but were still here undefeated,” said Munguia.
“I am very happy with the decision and in reality it took a lot of effort to achieve it. It was difficult but we were able to catch and hurt him in the 10th round and then we dropped him in the 12th round. I think ultimately, we achieved the victory thanks to my training. We trained really hard in the gym, obviously it’s not the same in the gym as in the ring, but we are always working hard, always trying to improve.”