Jaime Munguia’s team turned down an opportunity earlier this year to fight Janibek Alimkhanuly for the WBO interim middleweight title.

The winner, as it turned out, would’ve had the interim tag removed once Demetrius Andrade decided to pursue opportunities in the super middleweight division and relinquished his WBO 160-pound crown. As England’s Denzel Bentley proved last Saturday night, Alimkhanuly is more beatable than his handlers proclaimed prior to what was supposed to amount to a tune-up fight for the Kazakh southpaw in his first defense of the WBO 160-pound championship he won when he knocked out another Brit, Danny Dignum, in the second round May 21 in Las Vegas.

This Saturday night, Munguia (40-0, 32 KOs) will fight an opponent, Gonzalo Gaston Coria, that Alimkhanuly knocked out in the second round two years ago. Their 10-round, 165-pound bout, which DAZN will stream as a main event from Arena Astros in Guadalajara, Mexico, is such a mismatch that two prominent sportsbooks have made Munguia a 100-1 favorite.

Facing Coria (21-5, 8 KOs), whom Alimkhanuly knocked flat on his face in October 2020 at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas, is a fitting conclusion to a disappointing, perplexing 2022 for Munguia.

The Tijuana native could’ve fought Andrade (31-0, 19 KOs), for whom he was the WBO’s mandatory challenger, Alimkhanuly (13-0, 8 KOs) or WBC champ Jermall Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs). Munguia was also the WBC’s number one contender for Charlo’s championship.

Instead, he stopped American D’Mitrius Ballard (21-1-1, 13 KOs, 2 NC) in the third round February 19, knocked out England’s Jimmy Kelly (26-3, 10 KOs) in the fifth round June 11 and almost certainly will annihilate Argentina’s Coria.

According to several oddsmakers, Munguia was a 25-1 favorite to beat Ballard and a 50-1 favorite versus Kelly. For an undefeated fighter who was willing to challenge a then-unbeaten Gennadiy Golovkin on short notice in May 2018, Munguia’s level of opposition is trending in quite a different direction than we had hoped.

Munguia and his handlers claim he was willing to fight Andrade, Alimkhanuly and Charlo. They contend that the Charlo fight fell apart because DAZN, with which one of Munguia’s promoter (Golden Boy) has an exclusive content agreement, needed to be involved as a co-distributor of that pay-per-view event along with Showtime, which works with Charlo and Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions.

Whomever divided factions of fans choose to blame for Charlo-Munguia crumbling, it is worth noting that another undefeated fighter Golden Boy promotes, Ryan Garcia, announced a higher-profile fight against Gervonta Davis on Thursday. It is not a joint pay-per-view event, as Showtime’s broadcast, production and distribution teams will handle Davis-Garcia and DAZN will sell it through that streaming service, as will the usual cable and satellite operators and other digital providers.

Garcia, to his credit, refused to allow promotional or network/streaming service conflicts to prevent him from landing the only fight that matters to him.

In fairness, even if Charlo-Munguia was made, it might’ve resulted in disappointment for Munguia because Charlo reportedly suffered a back injury while training to oppose Poland’s Maciej Sulecki on June 18, withdrew from that fight and endured a disappointing 2022 of his own.

Regardless, the common denominator in the Andrade, Alimkhanuly and Charlo fights failing to materialize is Munguia. At some point, preferably right after he conquers Coria, Munguia will take more control in choosing his opponents.

“I really hope that 2023 brings a big fight,” Munguia told BoxingScene.com. “The goal for my next fight, the first fight of 2023, is to fight either for a championship or against a big name.”

Based on how he has improved both offensively and defensively, there doesn’t appear to be any reason why Munguia shouldn’t challenge himself in his first fight of 2023. He is already one of the most popular, fan-friendly fighters DAZN streams on a regular basis, but his “big fight” is long overdue.

That said, it is unclear if the 26-year-old contender considers himself a middleweight anymore. The contracted catch weight for his fights against Kelly and Coria was 165 pounds, but a move to super middleweight limit doesn’t seem smart if the former WBO junior middleweight champion wants what he says because fully unified 168-pound champion Canelo Alvarez has repeatedly stated that he would prefer to not fight fellow Mexicans.

Of course, Alvarez did reveal Wednesday that he wants to fight someone other than WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) when he returns to the ring in May, so that he can test out his surgically repaired left wrist before he boxes Bivol again. Even though it would require Alvarez to work with his former promoter again, maybe Munguia will become a realistic option for Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs) on Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2023.

Munguia didn’t dismiss Golovkin or Charlo as potential opponents next year, either. The 40-year-old Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs) could return to the middleweight division to defend his IBF, IBO and WBA belts in his next fight and Munguia demonstrated a willingness 4½ years ago to fight the Kazakh knockout artist when he was closer to his prime.

“Charlo, Golovkin – those are the level of fights that we want,” Munguia said. “We are looking to make those fights. Hopefully in 2023 we get a fight at that level.”

Hopefully, after nothing short of a disappointing, perplexing 2022, Munguia means what he said.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.