Munguia Survives Sixth-Round Scare to Keep WBA Crown Against Zon

Jaime Munguia is still the WBA super-middleweight champion, but only after surviving the most frightening round of his recent career. The Mexican beat unbeaten Russian Nikita Zon by unanimous decision — 117-111 twice and 116-112 — in the co-feature to the Canelo Alvarez card in Riyadh on Saturday, making the first defence of his belt. For about ninety seconds of the sixth round it looked as though the title was gone: Zon landed a clean left uppercut that hurt Munguia badly and had him in serious trouble. But the champion steadied himself, returned behind his jab in the seventh, went back to the body, and controlled the seventh through tenth rounds with cleaner work as Zon's pressure faded. Munguia improved to 47-2 with 35 knockouts, with a mandatory defence against Bektemir Melikuziev next. Zon, fighting outside his home country for the first time, suffered his first professional defeat and fell to 12-1-1 with 10 knockouts.