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NEW YORK – As arduous and aggravating as negotiations for the Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia bout became, the completion of their deal has left Oscar De La Hoya optimistic about putting together more fights with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.
Garcia’s promoter mentioned Jermall Charlo-Jaime Munguia as another PBC-Golden Boy Promotions matchup he hopes to make now that the companies have worked in conjunction to finalize the biggest fight on the boxing calendar in 2023. Charlo-Munguia wouldn’t do the type of big business expected of Davis-Garcia, but it is an intriguing middleweight title fight that the two companies attempted to schedule late last spring.
“Well, a perfect fight that I would love to put together as well is Jaime Munguia against Charlo,” De La Hoya said to a group of reporters Wednesday following a Davis-Garcia press conference at Palladium Times Square. “That’s another fight that can take place. So, I’m actually very happy that we can work with PBC and make this happen, because it opens up the door for other possibilities.”
Though there were times during negotiations that it appeared Charlo-Munguia would be finalized for last June 18, the deal didn’t materialize in part due to their competing network and streaming affiliations. Charlo’s fights are televised by Showtime, with which PBC is partnered, and DAZN, which has an exclusive content agreement with Golden Boy, streams Munguia’s bouts.
Those competing platform partnerships caused complications during Davis-Garcia negotiations. The two sides eventually agreed, though, that Showtime would be the lead broadcaster for their 12-round, 136-pound fight April 22 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Once negotiations ceased for the Munguia match, Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) agreed to oppose Poland’s Maciej Sulecki (30-2, 11 KOs) at Toyota Center in Charlo’s hometown of Houston. Charlo, 32, withdrew from that fight, reportedly due to a back injury, and the WBC middleweight champion still has not returned to the ring.
Mexico’s Munguia (41-0, 33 KOs) has knocked out two huge underdogs – England’s Jimmy Kelly (27-3, 10 KOs) and Argentina’s Gonzalo Gaston Coria (21-6, 8 KOs) – in the 26-year-old contender’s two appearances since the Charlo clash fell apart. Now that they’ve announced a much more marketable pay-per-view event, De La Hoya intends to rekindle talks for Charlo-Munguia and other bouts between Golden Boy and PBC boxers.
“Absolutely,” said De La Hoya, whose company co-promotes Munguia with Zanfer Boxing. “You know, our partners with DAZN and Showtime, you know, we’ve put this together. We can make others. So, I’m very optimistic that we can have the prime versus prime types of fights that boxing deserves.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.