The upset of the year in boxing happened on one of the last weekends of 2024.
Bruno Surace scored a shocking sixth-round KO win over Jaime Munguia on the strength of one powerful straight right hand. In case you missed it, here is a look at the explosive finish.
As you might expect, social media exploded with reactions following the KO win by Surace.
Surace came into the ring as a massive plus-1200 underdog and Munguia was a minus-2500 favorite. As wide as those odds are, it still doesn’t quite put into perspective what the 26-year-old Frenchman did on Saturday night.
Surace, a fighter who came in with a 26-0-2 record, but only four wins by knockout in his professional career, marched into Munguia’s hometown of Tijuana, Mexico, and served up a spectacular one-punch KO.
Even wilder, Munguia had never been stopped in his career. In fact, he’d only been down one other time in his career, and that was against Canelo Alvarez in May.
There was nothing about this fight that should have been dangerous for Munguia. He’d already dropped Surace in the second round with this scraping left hook.
At that point, it seemed Munguia would be on cruise control toward his 36th win by KO. Surace had other ideas as he caught Munguia sleeping with a picture-perfect punch on the chin.
The punch couldn’t have been timed any better. Here is a look at all of the highlights from the fight from Top Rank on YouTube.
This loss throws a major monkey wrench in Munguia’s plans to re-climb the ladder at super middleweight. Surace wasn’t ranked in the Top 15 by any of the four major governing bodies in boxing.
Munguia was third in the WBO, fifth in the IBF, second in the WBC, and fourth in the WBA. It stands to reason he could dip in all four when the next rankings are released.
As for Surace, his huge win is obviously the biggest of his career. When you look at his opposition prior to Munguia, only eight of his previous 25 opponents had a winning record.
However, with the win over Munguia, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him get an opportunity against another super middleweight opponent with a name. What do we think about a Jermall Charlo vs. Surace fight in Houston?
Charlo hasn’t fought since November 2023, but he has been reportedly working on a return to the ring in March 2025 on the Gervonta Davis vs. Lamont Roach card. If he keeps that date and doesn’t have an opponent, it would seemingly be a good spot for Surace to capitalize on the instant fame he earned for himself with the biggest upset KO of 2024.
