(Photo Credit: Banner/Promotions) By Allan Fox: #2 WBA middleweight contender Willie “The Mongoose” Monroe Jr. (19-1, 6 KOs) arrived on Monday at LAX in Los Angeles, California, for his fight his fight this Saturday night against WBA 160lb champion Gennady Golovkin (32-0, 29 KOs) at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
The Golovkin-Monroe fight will be televised on HBO World Championship Boxing starting at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
This is the 28-year-old Monroe’s big chance to make waves in the boxing world by pulling off an upset of Golovkin and taking his WBA belt back home with him to Ithaca, New York. This is the biggest fight of Monroe’s career by far. He won ESPN’s 2014 Boxcino Tournament a year ago, but he only had to beat Donatas Bondorovas, Vitaliy Kopylenko and Brandon Adams.
That’s a whole different level from the level he’s going to be fighting at this Saturday against Golovkin. Adams, Kopylenko and Bondorovas are B-level fighters at best, and not nearly in the same class as Golovkin. But Monroe did his job and beat the guys that were in front of him. He had no problems against any of them.
In his last fight against Brian Vera, Monroe showed that he can punch as well as defend, as he caught Vera again and again with hard shots to the head and body. Monroe was able to beat Vera at his own game by slugging with him. What enabled Monroe to do this was his fast hand speed. He caught Vera many times with shots that he didn’t see coming due to Monroe’s fast hand speed.
“This is a big test for me,” Golovkin said via reviewjournal.com. “I want to show everybody I can beat any style. It doesn’t matter. Strong guy, tall guy, short guy, anybody.”
Monroe’s style of fighting is a much different one that anything that Golovkin has faced before at the pro level. For starters, Monroe is a southpaw, and Golovkin hasn’t faced a lot of them since he turned pro in 2006. Monroe also has a four inch reach advantage despite being the same height as Golovkin. That’s another thing that Golovkin hasn’t had to deal with too much. He usually has a comparable reach to his opponents.
That’s not going to be the case on Saturday. Monroe has the longer arms, and you can bet that he’s going to be looking to take advantage of his long reach by keeping the action on the outside all night long. The other thing that Monroe has going for him is his superior hand speed. He’s not just a little bit faster than Golovkin, he’s a lot faster.
Having faster hands means that Monroe is going to be able to get his shots off quicker, and he’ll be able to counter Golovkin all night long. The last thing that Monroe has going for him in this fight is his superior mobility. He moves very quickly around the ring, and he’s almost impossible to hit when he doesn’t want to be. It’s going to be very difficult for Golovkin to land his crushing shots against Monroe with him moving around constantly.
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