{"id":926984,"date":"2026-10-09T21:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/926984\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T21:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:28:15","slug":"wba-claims-it-did-not-approve-jaime-munguia-vs-nikita-zon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/926984\/","title":{"rendered":"WBA claims it did not approve Jaime Munguia vs Nikita Zon"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you\u2019re just joining us, something weird is happening at super middleweight.<\/p>\n

Late last month, the WBA ordered<\/a> newly crowned champion Jaime Munguia (46-2, 35 KO) to face mandatory challenger Bektemir \u201cBek the Bully\u201d Melikuziev (17-1, 11 KO), who\u2019s been owed a title shot since edging out Darius Fulghum in an eliminator in May of last year. Munguia, seeking a spot on the Canelo vs Mbilli undercard against a more manageable opponent, sought to pay Melikuziev some step-aside money<\/a>, which Melikuziev publicly rejected.<\/p>\n

This made it strange when Munguia appeared on yesterday\u2019s undercard announcement<\/a> opposite amateur standout turned unremarkable pro Nikita Zon (12-0-1, 10 KO). The poster bizarrely listed Munguia vs Zon as a \u201cWBA Super Middleweight Fight\u201d in contrast to Rafael Espinoza vs Lorenzo Parra and Lindolfo Delgado vs Arthur Biyarslanov, which it clearly labeled as title bouts.<\/p>\n

We might now know why, as the WBA announced on social media<\/a> that they \u201cha[ve] not approved\u201d the fight and \u201cwill review the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only real remedy here is to strip Munguia. If they give him a slap on the wrist and let the fight go through with the stipulation that Munguia has to fight Melikuziev within X number of days, it\u2019s punishing Melikuziev for not taking the payoff. Same with doing their usual title shuffle and making Munguia \u201cchampion in recess\u201d or something.<\/p>\n

The WBA are the most cartoonishly amoral of the sanctioning bodies, but they\u2019ve retreated in the face of concentrated backlash before, and what little bits of optimism dot my blackened soul think they might actually recognize accommodating Munguia\u2019s shenanigans as a step too far. We can hope, at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In case you\u2019re just joining us, something weird is happening at super middleweight. Late last month, the WBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,711,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-926984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}