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Former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia 39-0 (31) continued his unbeaten run with a one-sided third-round stoppage of D’Mitrius ‘Big Meech’ Ballard 21-1-1 (13) at the Plaza Monumental in Tijuana, Mexico on Satuday night.
It was the 25-year-old Mexican’s fifth fight at middleweight since moving up a division just over two years ago.
Munguia applied the pressure from the get-go, visibly hurting American Ballard, 28, in the second round. A body shot sent Ballard to the deck in the third and referee Juan Jose Ramirez halted the contest at the 1:47 mark.
“I want to thank everyone for their support today,” said Munguia, who was fighting in his home town for the first time in almost five years. “It was a dream of mine to fight here, in front of the people that saw me grow up and develop as a fighter.
“We came well prepared for this fight and my performance today proved it. I knew that I was going to be the one to apply pressure and I went in there and did my job.”
Munguia is trained by retired former multiple weight world champion Erik Morales. He credited his coach for providing him with the right advice to get the win.
“D’Mitrius did have some power, that surprised me, but after the second round, Erik Morales advised me to apply more pressure, throw more combinations,” Munguia said.
“It paid off, I dropped him with a good liver shot and decided to just go for it and ended the fight.”
Ballard was disappointed with his performance but promised to come back better than ever.
“I felt I prepared well for Munguia today, but his power surprised me. I couldn’t find my rhythm and apply my jab. Now we have to go back to the gym, keep working and figure out what comes next,” said Ballard.
In the co-main event of the night, Mexico’s undefeated rising star, Willian ‘Camaron’ Zepeda 25-0 (23) of San Mateo Atenco showed off why he is considered to be one of the most dangerous fighters in the lightweight division when he scored a third-round knockout of Luis ‘Bofo’ Viedas 29-12-1 (10) of Tijuana.
Viedas had an awkward style, as charged headfirst a few times, causing him to slip several times throughout the fight. Zepeda chased him around, knocking him down twice in the second round and twice in the third round, with the referee calling the fight when he failed to get up at the 1:51 mark.
“He had a very dirty style of boxing, he kept coming forward, lunging in an awkward way,” said Zepeda, who was docked a point in the second round for using a forearm. “But fortunately, we were able to do our job today and got the victory.”
Zepeda was down in round two and Viedas was down in round two and twice in round three before being stopped.
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