In what looked like a war of worlds between two of the heaviest hitters in the 154 pound division, the fans in Houston were treated with a full twelve rounds between Mexico's WBO Junior Middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (32-0, 26 KO's) and Japan's Takeshi Inoue (13-1, 7 KO's). CLICK ON VIDEO BELOW:
Although Munguia was the favorite coming into this fight, Inoue came to fight and that he did. Inoue came out like a typhoon storm swinging from the first round until the end.
Munguia was forced to fight off his back foot for most of the fight to keep Inoue off of him as he countered and danced around the ring in a defensive mode, something very different from his last fight.
At first, it looked like this was part of the new boxing style that his new trainer was implementing into Munguia's straight ahead style. He had to use this new style, although they probably didn't think it would be used in this fight. He is still improving and this was a big test and part of the learning process.
In the early rounds of the fight, in order for Munguia to slow down the attack of Inoue, he started going to the body and countering with left hooks. And in the third round, he landed three left hooks to the body of Inoue but he shrugged it off and countered with a hard right hand to the head of Munguia.
In the beginning of fourth round, Munguia did his short version of the rope-a-dope as he calmly blocked a barrage of punches from Inoue and slipped in uppercuts and hooks to the body. But Inoue kept the pressure on and continued to force the action without any evidence of slowing down.
Up to this point in the fight, although they were throwing heavy punches with many of them being blocked by both fighters, neither fighter had landed a huge punch.
But in the sixth round, Inoue connected with two big punches to the left side of the head of Munguia who took them well. These were the first two significant punches of the fight from Inoue and he continued to force the action. Munguia then missed an uppercut and countered with several hard punches through the tough guard of Inoue and Inoue shook his head and gestured for more. This was also the first time that Munguia complained to the referee of being hit behind the head, and after the fight he said “I was surprised by him. He fought terrific but “He also hit me a lot behind the head, but I was able to fight through it.”
After trading punches and going back and forth with punches and counter punches, it wasn't until the tenth round when Munguia finally landed several big punches that wobbled and almost dropped Inoue. Even after this, Inoue shook the punches off, but he definitely felt the power of Munguia and many other middleweights would have fell.
Despite all the body punches landed by Munguia throughout the fight, Inoue took them all very well and rarely dropped his hands allowing Munguia to land the knockout punch.
In the end, Munguia fought a smart fight by countering and going to the body and holding off the attack of Inoue and defending his title for the third time.
After the fight, Munguia said "It was a great fight," "He was a great warrior. It was a great battle for me."
SEE HIGHLIGHTS OF FIGHT BELOW: