By Sean McDaniel: British super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg (24-0, 17 KO’s) will be testing his skills against 31-year-old former EBU super bantamweight champion Rendall Munroe (24-2, 10 KO’s) on June 16th at the Veledrome, in Manchester, UK. On the line for the fight will be the interim WBA super bantamweight title.
This is a fight for all boxing fans because it promises to have a lot of action while it lasts. For fans of these two fighters, it’s not big news because this fight has been talked about for a long time now but it’s finally happening.
The 23-year-old Quigg represents the new blood with his power and highly aggressive slugging style, whereas the 31-year-old Munroe would be considered the old guard trying to hold the line against a younger fighter. Munroe isn’t exactly old at 31, but it still seems that way because he’s been around for a while and his career seems to have peaked in 2009. In 2010, Munroe was easily beaten by WBC super bantamweight champion Toshiaki Nishioka by a 12 round unanimous decision. Munroe has won his last three fights since then against lesser opposition, so it’s difficult to say whether he’s on the slide or not.
With Quigg, you see see an all out puncher but with little experience against quality opposition. His best wins have come recently against Jason Booth and Jamie Arthur. Quigg was shockingly dropped by Arthur in the 4th round in their fight in February. To Quigg’s credit, he got up off the deck and came back to win the fight, but the knockdown showed that Quigg is vulnerable. The hype about Quigg is probably harder than he can live up to, as he’s really build up a lot of the excitement about him off one fight – his 7th round stoppage win over a past his best 34-year-old former British super bantamweight champion Jason Booth last October in an 11th round TKO.
People saw Quigg beat Booth and they suddenly started seeing Quigg as the real deal, a world class fighter ready to win a world title. Instead of putting things in perspective and realizing that Booth had been beaten in two out of his last three fights to Steve Molitor and Kiko Martinez, boxing fans jumped to conclusion seeing Quigg as the guy. To show you how far gone Booth is, he was beaten soundly in his next fight after the Quigg loss in a defeat at the hands of 22-year-old Kid Galahad (11-0, 4 KO’s).