Cayden Griffiths believes he has learned a valuable lesson that will help him level up as a fighter.
Griffiths, an unbeaten welterweight prospect, will face Omar Ulises Gutierrez Munguia, of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, on Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The bout comes two months after he was extended the distance for the first time in his career in a six-round decision victory over Lesther Espino in January.
“It happens. You are going to have guys who can eat your punches and go the distance,” Griffiths said. “That was a valuable learning experience that I am not just going to be able to go in there and blast everybody out of there.”
The 19-year-old Griffiths, 7-0 (6 KOs), knocked out six straight opponents to begin his career. The experience of going the distance, he believes, will ultimately make him a better fighter – though the means by which he arrived at that point still left a bad taste in his mouth.
“I was disappointed,” Griffiths said. “There are a lot of things that went into why that happened.”
Griffiths got sick two days before the fight and then fractured his hand during it.
The result was a performance that didn’t live up to the standard he wants to set. Griffiths has built a large social media following on the back of two ingredients: a lot of knockouts, which are clippable, and the novelty of being a U.S.-based white fighter.
Griffiths told BoxingScene before the Espino fight that he wanted to go to a decision at some point – but that wasn’t the one. After he was stretched to the final bell, Griffiths had a new perspective that he was taking into the Munguia bout.
“For a while, I was convinced that if I landed the right shot on these guys, they were not getting up,” said Griffiths, who is trained by Joel Diaz. “Now, I learned it is not about power, but it is about landing the right shot.”
Munguia, 8-2-1 (6 KOs), has lost his past two fights after starting his career unbeaten. He was stopped by middleweight Weljon Mindoro in June, and then he lost an eight-round unanimous decision to Justin Lacey-Pierce in August, when the 28-year-old Gutierrez Munguia moved down to junior middleweight.
“He is a bigger guy,” Griffiths said of Munguia. “He is 6ft tall. Going in, I know this is going to be a tough guy to get rid of.”
Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.
