Less than a year ago, Jaime Munguia fought in Cancun, Mexico, on an undercard headlined by Miguel Berchelt. The 21-year-old’s aggressive, fan-friendly style was clear even if he remained raw.

“Offensively, Munguia is a monster,” Carlos Aguilar, commentator for TV Azteca, said in Spanish. “He is a monster that emerges from the swamps and eats and tears you apart.”

That night, in that casino, a cross-country flight away from the opposite Mexican coast where he grew up, Munguia tore his opponent apart.

He knocked Jose Carlos Paz down twice in three rounds. The last knockdown came from a left hook to the body. That punch is painful to endure. Perhaps the most painful. Paz felt it. He fell to one knee. He grimaced. He struggled to breathe, then shook his head to show he could not fight anymore.

That fight began a 2018 that drastically changed Munguia’s life. Few boxers had a better year. And on Saturday, in Houston’s Toyota Center against Takeshi Inoue, Munguia looks to continue his ascent. He will defend his WBO super welterweight title. But more than that, Munguia — touted as the next great Mexican boxer — continues his march toward that unofficial but important title.

Munguia, the son of an ex-boxer, began fighting as an afterthought

If soccer remains its most popular sport, boxing is Mexico’s Freudian id. For better or worse, it speaks to the culture’s deeply rooted machismo. And few things in Mexico are more overly reliant on that machismo than boxing. Historically, Tepito — a borough of Mexico City — has produced some of the country’s top boxing talent. Carlos Zárate, “Ratón” Macías, “El Púas” Olivares, and Kid Azteca all come from Tepito.

More recently, however, Tijuana has grown and attracted Mexico’s top boxing talent. Julio César Chávez — the standard by which every Mexican boxer gets measured against, even if unfair — moved there once he outgrew the competition in his hometown of Culiacán, Sinaloa. Among the city’s many boxing world champions, Érik Morales and Antonio Margarito are from Tijuana, so too is Munguia.

And while there is a large difference between Mexico City, the country’s cultural center, and Tijuana, a geographic borderland influenced by the United States as much as by the Mexican capital, boxing is one thing that unites across Mexico. And when certain young champions come along, someone like Munguia, the entire country takes notice.

“A lot of people have told me I’m the future of boxing … the future of Mexican boxing,” Munguia said to Yahoo Sports, in Spanish. “That could be a burden … but it’s also motivation to keep doing what we’ve been doing. To keep moving forward, to demonstrate and prove what people are saying. I think we can do it. And we will.”

View photos Jaime Munguia defends his WBO super welterweight title Saturday against Takeshi Inoue. (Amanda Westcott/DAZN) More

Munguia’s confidence — which, when he talks, never strays into arrogance — comes from the many years he’s been in and around the sport. The son of a former boxer, Munguia estimates he was 4 or 5 years old when he first sparred. He was 10 years old when he first fought as an amateur. Training in the same gym as Antonio Margarito — one of his early boxing idols — Munguia eventually won a gold medal in the Mexican national championships. Too young to fight in the 2012 London Olympics and too impatient to wait another four years, Munguia turned professional. He was 16 years old.

“I never lacked for anything,” Munguia said, noting how his story isn’t the typical one associated with boxers who, growing up in abject poverty, must fight to survive. Raised in Tijuana’s Colonia Xico, Munguia didn’t grow up around affluence either. With a few exceptions, in Mexico and worldwide, rich kids don’t box. “My mother worked and so did my father. I always went to school. I never needed anything, but I wanted to be more.”

It wasn’t until a few years into his professional career that Munguia thought the more he sought, could come through boxing.

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