Jaime Munguia will defend the WBO Junior Middleweight title against mandatory challenger Dennis Hogan on April 13 in Monterrey, Mexico, according to Dan Rafael of espn.com.
“He’s a very tough fighter and it’s going to make for a good fight because he is a pressure fighter who likes to come forward and be aggressive like Munguia does,” Golden Boy Promotions President Eric Gomez said.
Munguia is very big for the division and Gomez said he is close to moving up to middleweight.
“We’ve talked about it and he thinks he can finish out the year at 154,” Gomez said. “He’ll fight four times this year and this will be his second fight. So after this fight we will discuss it again with our [promotional] partner Fernando [Beltran of Zanfer Promotions] and with Munguia, but he says he can still make the weight and he seems good making it. But he’ll move up to middleweight in the future.”
Gomez said the undercard will feature the return of Diego De La Hoya, who will move up to featherweight from junior featherweight, where he has badly struggled to make weight and seen fights canceled because of it.
De La Hoya (21-0, 10 KOs), 24, of Mexico, who is the first cousin of Golden Boy CEO and International Boxing Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya, will face an opponent to be determined in a 10-round bout.
“He had trouble with the weight. All young fighters go through that,” Gomez said. “They think they can still make weight and their body is growing and they can’t. So we all got together and talked about it and we agreed it was time for him to go to featherweight.”
