By Dan Ambrose: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) is ready for a big drama show two months from now when he makes his title defense against the slick #3 WBA, #5 WBO, #9 WBO Willie Monroe Jr (19-1, 6 KOs) in their fight on HBO Championship Boxing at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
Golovkin lives in Los Angeles now, and he’s pleased to be defending his title in the city he lives. In the 28-year-old Monroe, Golovkin has a much different type of opponent than he’s faced during his pro career.
While fighting in the amateur ranks, Golovkin faced guys that can move like Andre Dirrell, but he’s never fought someone that moves as much as Monroe. Dirrell fought Golovkin toe-to-toe at times during their fight in the Olympics. Monroe won’t be doing that. He’s going to be moving constantly to keep from getting nailed by Golovkin’s powerful head and body shots.
“Its going to be one of those fights; speed vs. power, slickness vs. aggressiveness and the bull vs. the matador. I am ready,” Monroe said. “I’ve been in training already for three weeks before we even got this fight. We will be more than ready on May 16.”
Monroe describes the match-up pretty accurately. However, if Monroe is interested in winning the fight rather than just surviving then he’s going to need to stand in the pocket a lot more than he did in his last fight against Brian Vera.
Monroe won’t win a single round against Golovkin if he runs like he did in the Vera fight. There is no way a judge will give Monroe any rounds if he fights like he did against Vera, because he was just running without fighting during long stretches of that fight.
If Golovkin is stalking Monroe around the ring then Monroe is going to have to stand his ground actually fight. In addition to the running problem Monroe has, he needs to stop holding 24/7, because he’s not going to win rounds holding Golovkin each time he gets near to him.
Monroe won’t have a height advantage over Golovkin, so it’s going to be difficult for him to keep the Kazakhstan fighter off of him. But if Monroe’s only answer is to run and hold, then he’d be better off having his trainer pull the plug on the fight early on, because he’s not going to win rounds fighting like that.
“I’m very excited to fight again in Los Angeles where I now live” said Golovkin. “Monroe is a skilled southpaw and I look forward to the test he will provide. I promise my fans another ‘Big Drama Show’.”
Golovkin is interested in facing the other middleweight champions Miguel Cotto, Daniel Jacobs and the winner of the Andy Lee vs. Peter Quillin fight. Thus far, Golovkin has been unable to get any of the champions to fight him. It’s like getting teeth pulled. These guys have shown zero interest in getting in the ring with Golovkin. That’s unfortunate because it puts Golovkin in the position where he has to defend his title against obscure guys like Monroe and Martin Murray.
What’s really sad is that Golovkin winds up getting blamed by the casual boxing fans for not taking on better opposition, even though it’s not his fault that the better fighters don’t want to take a chance of fighting him.
Golovkin is stuck fighting the guys that are interested in fighting him, and unfortunately those guys are the little known guys that you sometimes see on ESPN. In this case, Monroe is one of those little known guys. He recently won the Boxcino tournament in 2014 after beating these guys: Brandon Adams, Vitaliy Kopylenko, and Donatan Bondorovas. Those guys aren’t exactly well-known, and it kind of shows you why Monroe was able to win the tournament.
“We commend Willie Monroe Jr. for accepting the challenge of fighting Gennady, which many other contenders and even title holders are unwilling to even consider,” Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffer said.
Golovkin is coming off of a victory over Martin Murray last January. Murray ran from Golovkin for 10 rounds until being stopped in the 11th. But the running that Murray did will likely be nothing compared to the movement that we’re going to see from Monroe in this fight.
We can only hope that Monroe stands in the pocket for a short while so that fight is an interesting one for the boxing fans.
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