By Patrick McHugh: After his 12 round unanimous decision win over #10 WBO middleweight fringe contender Gabriel Rosado (23-10, 13 KOs) last Saturday night, #14 WBO Willie Monroe Jr. (21-2, 6 KOs) is now saying that he’s earned a fight against fellow Golden Boy Promotions fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and he’s ready to get that fight in December on HBO.
Monroe Jr., 29, defeated Rosado by the scores 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112. In truth, neither fighter looked good. Monroe won, but it wasn’t the kind of fight where it created any demand from the boxing public to see the southpaw Monroe fighting Canelo in September or any time in the future.
If HBO is going to put a fight between Canelo and Monroe on their network in December, it’s difficult to imagine the fans wanting to see the fight. It would be on regular HBO and not pay-per-view, but it’s another disappointing mismatch for Canelo.
“Thanks to everyone Golden Boy Promotions and Banner Promotions,” said Monroe after the Rosado fight last night. “This is stuff I only dreamed about as a kid. I love what I am doing and hope you liked what you saw. I think I have earned a shot to fight Canelo. He is promoted by Golden Boy and if we can do it, we can begin to talk about that.”
I don’t know of too many boxing fans that will be chomping at the bit to see Canelo fight Willie Monroe next December. Monroe is only two fights away from having been knocked out Gennady Golovkin in six rounds last year. Since that fight, Monroe has beaten John Thompson and now Rosado. He hasn’t beaten anyone good.
I think it would be better if Canelo and Golden Boy forgot about Monroe for December, and instead fight someone like Curtis Stevens, David Lemieux, Chris Eubank Jr., or Andy Lee. Monroe is with Golden Boy Promotions, so that would make it an in house fight for them if they matched him against Canelo. Still, a fight between Canelo and Monroe is not one that the fans are interested in seeing. Since Canelo’s fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, he’s only had two interesting matches against Erislandy Lara and Miguel Cotto. The other fights Canelo has had have been against James Kirkland, Amir Khan, Alfredo Angulo and Liam Smith. Those are easy marks.
You can make an argument that Golden Boy should have found a better fight put on Canelo’s fight card last night rather than having two bottom feeders in Monroe Jr. and Rosado fighting in the co-feature bout. It was bad enough that Canelo was fighting WBO 154lb belt holder Liam Smith in the main event on the HBO pay-per-view card last night, but to have Monroe and Rosado fighting in the co-feature, it was disappointing. These are not highly ranked fighters in the 160lb division. Monroe and Rosado are just former knockout victims of Gennady Golovkin. That’s about all you can say about them. If Canelo turns around and fights Monroe in December, it’s going to look bad, really bad.
I guess Golden Boy will do what they want to do with their match-making. It’s doubtful that they’ll chose someone that will give Canelo a potentially difficult fight like Lemieux, Stevens, Tureano Johnson or Andy Lee. Monroe (21-2, 6 KOs) doesn’t have much punching power, as you can see from his record, and he has a bad habit of standing in the corner and staying perfectly still while he’s waiting to land pot shots.
Golovkin was able to flatten Monroe three times last year in the process of knocking him out in the 6th round. The fight was made easier for Golovkin because of Monroe’s habit of standing still while looking to land his pot shots.