The World Boxing Council has approved #1 WBC Jaime Munguia and #2 Sergiy Derevyanchenko to fight in a 160-lb title eliminator to determine a mandatory challenger to champion Jermall Charlo for his belt.
The 36-year-old Derevyanchenko (13-3, 10 KOs) has lost three out of his last four fights since 2018, and all three involved world titles.
However, many boxing fans believed Derevyanchenko deserved the victories in two fights against Daniel Jacobs in 2018 and Gennadiy Golovkin in October 2019.
The only apparent defeat that the 2008 Olympian Derevyanchenko suffered came at WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs) last September 2020.
That was the last time Derevyanchenko fought, as he took a lot of punishment to the face in that fight and his previous defeat against GGG.
Munguia, 25, will likely be the favorite against Derevyanchenko, as he’s the younger and much fresher of the two. Still, it won’t be an easy win for Munguia, considering he struggled to beat the shopworn 35-year-old Gabe Rosado in winning a grueling 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night, November 13th, in Anaheim, California.
Rosado hurt Munguia several times in the fight and would have had a chance of knocking him out if he’d thrown more punches.
The fight showed that Munguia is not on the level of Golovkin, who destroyed a younger, better version of Rosado in seven rounds in 2013.
To face Munguia in a WBC 160-lb title eliminator, Derevyanchenko will still need to defeat Carlos Adames (20-1, 16 KOs) next month on December 5th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
Derevyanchenko vs. Adames will be taking place on the undercard of Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz on SHOWTIME PPV.
Given Derevyanchenko’s advanced age and all the wear & tear from his recent fights against Charlo, Golovkin, and Jacobs, it’s a 50-50 proposition for him to get past Adames on December 5th.
Adames is a limited slugger and looked terrible in his 12 round unanimous decision loss to Patrick Teixeira in November 2019, but he’s a lot younger than Derevyanchenko at 27 and can punch.
Assuming Derevyanchenko does beat Adames, he’s likely going to need six or more months for his face to heal before he is ready to fight Munguia in a WBC 160-lb title eliminator.
As long as the WBC is on okay with Derevyanchenko needing a lot of time to heal up before facing Munguia in a title eliminator, this should be a fun one to watch in 2022.
Munguia throws a lot of shots, and he has good punching power. It’s challenging to predict Derevyanchenko beating him because he doesn’t have tremendous power. Although Derevyanchenko gave Golovkin trouble with his body punching, it’s unclear whether he’ll have the same type of success against Munguia.
We’ve never seen anyone attack Munguia to the body the way Derevyanchenko did against Golovkin, so it’s going to be interesting to see how well he holds up.
We know that Munguia can take a pretty could punch without getting seriously hurt, and he gets hurt frequently, but never to the extent where his fights need to be stopped. Maybe a body attack from Derevyanchenko might do the trick to defeating Munguia.