Thursday, 2 May 2024

CANELO VS. MUGUIA: UNDERCARD DRAWS CRITICISM AHEAD OF SATURDAY NIGHT SHOWDOWN


 Fans are questioning the hefty $89.99 price tag for this Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia PPV card, given that the undercard lacks any interesting fights to justify the high cost of ordering the event on Amazon Prime Video and DAZN PPV.

 Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs) will defend his undisputed super middleweight championship against Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) in the main event. That’s a solid match-up, but it’s not the blockbuster that would justify the near hundred-dollar price the organizers are charging for the event.


The Warm-Up Undercard Fights

Mario Barrios vs. Fabio Maidana: In the co-main event, Mario Barrios will defend his WBC interim welterweight title against Fabian Maidana, who is best known for being related to Marcos Maidana. Fabian isn’t ranked in the top 15, and his best career win came against Andrey Klimov in 2018.

Brandon Figuera vs. Jessie Magdaleno: Former WBA super bantamweight champion Figueroa (24-1, 18 KOs) lost to his title in 2021 and now holds the WBC featherweight interim belt after beating Mark Magsayo. Figueroa will defend his interim belt against the 32-year-old former WBO 122-lb champion Magdaleno (29-2, 18 KOs), who is coming off a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision against Raymond Ford last April.

Eimantas Stanionis vs. Gabriel Maestre: Stanionis defends his WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title against #4 ranked WBA contender Maestre (6-0-1, 5 KOs) Maestre is a 2012 Olympian from Venezuela, who hasn’t been tested at the professional level against quality opposition yet. He has a 10-round draw against Taras Shelestyuk in 2022.


Organizers Need to Sweeten the Deal

Fans feel the Canelo-Munguia fight is not interesting enough to warrant the steep price without a worthwhile undercard.  They see the undercard as being just thrown together with washed-up guys and paper champions.

Stanionis and Barrios aren’t viewed as true champions, and Figueroa and Magadeno are viewed as over-the-hill. Fabian Maidana isn’t a world-class fighter, and Maestre is an older guy with 7 fights on his resume against weak opposition, and he already has a draw on his resume.

Given the poor undercard, fans aren’t excited about paying the $89.99 price tag to order the Canelo-Munguia card on Amazon Prime Video PPV, DAZN PPV, and PPV dot com.

The organizers aren’t going to drop the price of the event, but it would be in their best interest to add a worthy fight to the undercard to motivate fans to purchase the event and give the ones that have their money’s worth.

- Tim Compton

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