Monroe defeats Brian Vera

By Boxing News - 01/16/2015 - Comments

By Jim Dower: In a rather boring fight from start to finish, #3 WBA, #7 WBO, #13 WBC middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr (19-1, 6 KOs) boxed/ran his way to a dull 10 round unanimous decision win over journeyman Brian Vera (23-9, 14 KOs) on Friday night at the Turning Stone in Verona, New York.

The final judges’ scores were 98-91, 97-92 and 99-90. Vera was knocked down in the 5th round when his right glove touched the canvas after being knocked off balance by a slapping punch by Monroe Jr.

For the most part, Monroe ran around the ring, throwing pot shots, changing directions constantly, holding and looking to keep from getting hit. Most of Monroe’s focus in the fight was on defense, as he didn’t like to mix it up much.

Occasionally Monroe did stop and fight the much slower Vera, and he was able to get the better of him with shots. But those occasions were usually rare and mostly towards the ends of every round. The constant movement and holding by Monroe made the fight difficult to watch, because he didn’t stand still long enough for the fight to be entertaining.

With Monroe Jr’s ranking, he’ll likely be getting a title shot against one of the champions sooner or later. It’ll be difficult to picture Monroe facing a guy like Gennady Golovkin, because the fight would likely turn into an even worse track meet than we saw tonight.

Monroe Jr would likely be running nonstop against a guy like Golovkin and it would make for bad television on HBO until Golovkin catches up with him and scores a knockout. It would be nice to see Monroe beat an actual top contender before he gets a title shot so he can prove himself against someone with talent rather than a slow journeyman like Vera.

In other action on the card, middleweight Brandon Adams (15-1, 10 KOs) stopped Lekan Byfield (6-6-2, 1 KOs) in the 2nd round. Adams knocked Byfield down in the 1st round. In the 2nd round, Adams put Byfield down two more times before the bout was halted. It was a really bad mismatch needless to say. The bout was stopped at 1:58 of the 2nd.

Welterweight Greg Jackson (4-1-1, 2 KOs) was knocked own in the 2nd round by a right hand from Cornelius Whitlock (3-2-2, 2 KOs). However, Jackson recovered well in between rounds, and he was able to come back and stop Whitlock with a flurry of punches. The fight was halted at 1:27 of the round.



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