Maliek Montgomery hopes to spring back to the top of the division when he faces Rene Tellez Giron on Saturday night at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California. The ten-round lightweight bout will air live on ProBox TV. 

Montgomery, 20-2 (18 KOs), saw a cut derail his fight against Joshua Pagan last October as he was stopped in the ninth round. Montgomery is looking to put an awful 2025 behind him, which saw him lose twice. On the flip side, Tellez Giron is coming off an upset win over Jordan White.

“He is not a better fighter than me,” Montgomery told BoxingScene of Tellez Giron. “That would catapult us to where we need to be.”

Montgomery knows what is at stake for this fight: his career. 

“My mindset going into this fight is it is a must-win,” Montgomery said. “I feel like this is a good fight for me coming off that loss, and he is coming off a big win.”

Montgomery admits that at a certain point against Pagan, he became preoccupied with making sure the referee didn’t stop the bout. Between rounds, he stopped adjusting and began focusing on going one more round. 

“The cut happening so early in the fight threw off some of the things I worked on,” Montgomery said. “For me, it was mainly fighting through the cut.”

When asked about the cut that opened during the fight with Pagan, Montgomery, 30, explained the process of getting back to sparring and training. 

“Once I got through my first few sparring sessions, I honestly forgot about the cut,” Montgomery said. “We have been working on making this a one-sided beatdown.”

Montgomery had been hoping to make a fight against White, making it a natural decision to face Tellez Giron, 22-5 (13 KOs)

Tellez Giron, a 27-year-old from Queretaro, Mexico, has had a career filled with inconsistency. He knocked out Karlos Balderas in 2019 to spoil the 2016 U.S. Olympian’s unbeaten record, but then missed weight and got outboxed by Giovanni Cabrera, a couple of years later. In 2024, Tellez Giron served as a quality gatekeeper, defeating George Acosta and Alex Dilmaghani, both of whom were looking to go to the next level. 

In late 2024, he would lose to Floyd Schofield and follow that up with a loss to Eduardo “Rocky” Hernandez. Tellez Giron is now on a two-fight winning streak as he looks to find momentum, something that has eluded him throughout his career. 

“I think he is a good name,” Montgomery said. “He has more experience than me in terms of fighting on certain stages. I feel that at this point, this would be a great win for me.”