By Dan Ambrose: Middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr. thinks that IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) has a good shot of beating IBO/WBA 160lb champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) if Lemieux stays close to Golovkin and forces him to fight on the inside when the two of them face each other on October 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Monroe says he gave Golovkin problems in their fight last May when he was fighting him in close. Monroe was stopped in the 6th round though after he quit following a knockdown. I’m not sure that Monroe is the guy that should be giving advice for Lemieux in how to beat Golovkin because he failed miserably in getting dropped three times in the fight.
“The thing I will give Lemieux is when I fought Golovkin, in close quarters is where I was getting off, and that’s not even my forte,” Monroe said to Fighthype.com. “Lemieux is very sharp and good in close quarters with those uppercuts, so if he could make Golovkin respect his power, which I’m pretty sure he can, and stay at close quarters, he can make it a really rough night for Golovkin.”
I don’t think it’s a good idea for the inexperienced Lemieux to be looking to take the fight to the inside against Golovkin. Lemieux has already shown to have problems with his chin in fights against Marco Antonio Rubio and Gabriel Rosado. If Lemieux stands in close against Golovkin, he’s going to open himself up to getting nailed by some of his best head and body shots.
Golovkin had Monroe ready to be knocked out in the 2nd round after dropping him twice. But instead of looking to finish him off, Golovkin seemed to ease off on Monroe and let him survive. Golovkin later said that he carried Monroe to the 6th round. His trainer Abel Sanchez said the same thing.
Monroe obviously doesn’t believe that because he notes that Golovkin began to breath very hard starting in the 4th round from the pace of the fight. If he was carrying Monroe, then he wasn’t doing a good job because the pace was tiring him out. However, Golovkin may have been breathing hard, but his punching power was still intact because he had Monroe hurt in the 5th round.
In the 6th, Golovkin turned up the pressure on Monroe and dropped him hard. Monroe got back to his feet and told the referee that he was done. It was a good thing that Monroe chose to have the fight stopped at that time because he was clearly going to get knocked out in the traditional fashion if he had agreed to let the fight continue.
Monroe feels that he should have taken the fight to Golovkin from the start of the fight by going right at him instead of trying to box with him the way he did. Monroe thinks that he would have done a much better job if he’d been putting the heat on Golovkin. I’m not so sure that would have worked out too well for Monroe because he likely would have been chopped down quickly if he’d pressured Golovkin instead of trying to use movement to survive.
Comments are closed.