‘People jump to these conclusions’: Espinoza discusses Canelo’s return to PBC

Canelo Alvarez is set for a PBC fight against Jaime Munguia when it was previously reported he’d be leaving the company.

Stephen Espinoza takes a few minutes to chat with Fight Hub TV about a couple of upcoming cards that will appear on PBC, including Canelo Alvarez vs Jaime Munguia as well as Tim Tszyu vs Sebastian Fundora. The former Showtime executive, who’s seemingly been working in an advisory role for PBC as of late, shares his perspective on these upcoming cards.

Espinoza on the Canelo vs Munguia fight

“I think this is the right time for the Munguia fight because I think if you looked at Munguia a year ago, two years ago, he was a brawler, he was rough. And I’m not saying he had no skills but he was largely a brawler, and I think what you’ve seen particularly the last year is a lot of progress in Munguia.”

On the reports of Canelo leaving PBC only to strike a deal with them soon thereafter

“It’s been a long time since Canelo took his business over. He’s been the captain of his ship, he’s been maneuvering and navigating his own career for quite a while...at a certain point if he wasn’t seeing what he liked or he had curiosity where the opportunities were, it’s absolutely his right to go look around. That’s why when everyone says it was an amicable parting of ways, clearly it was.

“If anyone had burned a bridge they wouldn’t have gotten back together. So at a certain point people jump to these conclusions, they want to pitch these certain narratives about what’s happened and nine times out of ten they’re jumping to conclusions and spreading a narrative that isn’t true, ‘oh, PBC’s out of money, Canelo doesn’t want to deal with them.’ No, let’s not be so melodramatic about things.”

On Sebastian Fundora replacing Keith Thurman against Tim Tszyu

“There’s probably some people out there who say this is perhaps a bigger challenge to Tszyu. It’s certainly a different challenge. For all the things Keith brings to the table, Fundora is a very different fighter. So you’re now adjusting on 10-day, 12-days notice...It’s a fight that could’ve been happening later this year anyway, you’re just getting it a little bit early.”