By Dan Ambrose: After taking a beating last Saturday night in a fight in which he ultimately quit in the 6th round, #2 WBA middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr. (19-2, 6 KOs) says he doesn’t want to see boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) face IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) in the near future.
Monroe, 28, doesn’t think Mayweather has anything to prove by fighting the popular Golovkin, and he believes that it would be too tough of a task in Mayweather coming up in weight all the way to 160 to fight the Kazakhstan fighter.
Golovkin actually said he would come down to 154 to fight Mayweather, so it appears Monroe is a little confused about at which weight the Mayweather-Golovkin fight would take place at. None the less, Monroe thinks that if Mayweather beat Golovkin, people would find yet another person even more formidable for Mayweather to fight. Monroe doesn’t want this. He thinks Mayweather has proven himself enough in his career without him having bigger challenges.
“I think people need to stop trying to put him up there with Floyd. He’s been a world champion for 19 years,” Monroe said to Fighthype. “There is no need for Floyd to come up to middleweight. He doesn’t even walk around at junior middleweight, why the hell does he need to come up and fight a middleweight? He’s [Mayweather] not even a real 147, he could still be at 140 so why come up and fight a middleweight.”
Golovkin says he would come down to 154 to fight Mayweather. He wouldn’t make him come up top 160 to take the fight. Monroe may not understand why fans want to see Mayweather fight the likes of Golovkin, but it’s more about challenges. Mayweather doesn’t have anyone good enough to fight at 147 any longer, and there aren’t any big names at 154 for Mayweather to fight now that he’s beaten Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, a fighter who is kind of a mix between a junior middleweight and a big middleweight. Given that Golovkin, a small middleweight, weighs about the same amount as Canelo after he rehydrates for his fights, the natural thing for fans to want to see is Mayweather fight Golovkin.
If Mayweather was willing to fight Canelo, who is the exact same size Golovkin is in terms of weight, then it makes sense for boxing fans to want to see Mayweather fight Golovkin. Monroe may not be able to understand this, but that’s the way fans see it. They want to see the best, and Golovkin is definitely the best at 160, and he can do the same things Canelo does in melting down to 154 and then rehydrating to the low to mid-170s if he wants.
Golovkin rehydrated to only 170 pounds for his fight last Saturday night against Monroe, and that makes Golovkin lighter than Canelo, who is rehydrating to the mid-170s for his fights. If Mayweather was willing to fight Canelo, who is heavier than Golovkin, then he should be willing to fight Golovkin as well.
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