The undercard for Canelo Alvarez’s undisputed super middleweight clash against IBF belt-holder William Scull has been announced for May 3rd, and fans on social media are NOT enthusiastic about the fights on the PPV card. They expected better.
In the co-feature, Jaime Munguia, fresh off a knockout loss, faces Bruno Surace in a rematch to avenge his embarrassing sixth-round defeat last December. It’s a decent fight, but it’s more of a match that would be better positioned lower in the card.
Undercard Issues
You can argue that the entire undercard should be scrapped altogether because there’s no interesting fight. Take a big broom, sweep out the undercard as a whole, and start over from scratch.
The Ring revealed this is Canelo-Scull’s undercard:
– Jaime Munguia vs Bruno Surace 2
– Martin Bakole vs Efe Ajagba
– Badou Jack vs Ryan Rozicki
– Marco Verde vs Michel Polina
– Brayan Leon vs Aaron Guerrero
The Munguia-Surace 2 and Bakole-Ajagba are semi-decent for preliminary card-type fights, but everything after that is not appealing matches.
It would have been better to match Munguia against one of the top super middleweights like Osleys Iglesias in a sink-or-swim fight. That would have been much more interesting than putting Munguia back in with Surace because he’s likely to win the rematch.
It was a cherry-pick gone wrong last December designed to ramp Munguia back up for a rematch with Canelo, which would be another poor fight for the fans. At least by putting Munguia in with Iglesias, he’d be finished off once and for all, and fans could see someone with actual talent rather than a fighter artificially created with weak matchmaking throughout his career. Munguia is being maneuvered into a rematch with Canelo. That’s the whole purpose of Munguia being put in the co-feature spot.
Munguia’s entire career has been pretty well managed. He has no real quality wins to speak of, and his promoters have done a lot of careful matchmaking to avoid him getting beaten. With the way he’s been matched, he’s basically like another Edgar Berlanga.
1-2 Record
Before the little-known Bruno Surace destroyed Munguia, he’d lost to Canelo Alvarez last May by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision. It looked like Canelo took it easy on Munguia, staying in second gear and not pressing for a knockout when he certainly could have after dropping him in the fourth.
The 12-year professional Munguia’s best career wins have come against John Ryder, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, and Erik Bazinyan. That’s not exactly murderers’ row.
Surace (26-0-2, 5 KOs) destroyed Munguia in front of his fans in Tijuana, Mexico, on December 14th. Super middleweight contender Munguia (44-2, 35 KOs) has a 1-2 record in his last three fights, which shows he doesn’t belong near the co-feature spot.
310 Pounds
Heavyweight contender Martin Bakole (21-2, 16 KOs) is coming off a second-round knockout loss to Joseph Parker on February 22nd in Riyadh, and he looked terrible in that fight. He came into the contest weighing 310 lbs and wasn’t physically fit enough to compete against a fighter like Parker.
Efe Ajagba (20-1, 14, KOs) hasn’t done much since being beaten by Frank Sanchez in 2021. Ajagba has won his last five fights but against lesser opposition. He’s looked limited in each of those fights.
Last Updated on 03/17/2025
