WBO officially orders Janibek Alimkhanuly vs Jaime Munguia

After trouncing yet another garbage opponent this past weekend, Jaime Munguia has a title shot on the table if he wants it. The WBO has officially ordered him to challenge Janibek Alimkhanuly for their middleweight title, giving them 15 days to avoid a $200,000-minimum purse bid.

I would be flat-out astounded if this actually happened. Munguia (41-0, 33 KO) has been sitting on the sanctioning body’s “guaranteed title shot as a champion moving up” status for nearly three years now and already turned down an order to fight Alimkhanuly (13-0, 8 KO) for an interim title back when Demetrius Andrade held the real thing. It’s pathetic that the WBO let him stay atop the rankings for this long, and even with Alimkhanuly’s poor showing against Denzel Bentley last time out, the cowards at Golden Boy aren’t letting him within 100 feet of “Qazaq Style.”

Munguia has claimed that he wants Gennadiy Golovkin, but that’s only possible if “GGG” drops his belts, as he has a standing order to fight Esquiva Falcao and Erislandy Lara back-to-back. While could try for a WBC title shot, as they also pandered to him and kept him in the rankings after skipping an ordered fight with now-interim-champ Carlos Adames, he and Jermall Charlo already failed one negotiation and Charlo is apparently allowed to ditch as many mandatories as he wants.

So, yeah, expect Shane Mosley Jr or something.

As for who’ll fight Alimkhanuly instead, Chris Eubank Jr sits right behind Munguia in the rankings. If Eubank elects to continue his lengthy stint of fighting middling middleweights, Alimkhanuly’s countryman Meiirim Nursaltanov would get the call.