In what will be another familiar episode, Gennady Golovkin squares off against Willie Monroe Jr., unknown, and boxing?s latest whipping boy for ?the big drama show,? this time at the Forum in Inglewood, California. Yes, you guessed it. The only thing selling this fight is Golovkin?s resemblance to Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. and the promise?it?s already written in stone in the K2 offices?of his 20th straight knockout. For his efforts, in turn, Monroe may finally get his own Wikipedia entry.
After dispensing with respected but unremarkable middleweight contenders in Matthew Macklin, Curtis Stevens, Daniel Geale, Marco Antonio Rubio, and most recently, Martin Murray, Golovkin, 32-0 (29), faces a fighter whose lack of recognition is offset by his supposedly fleet ways. Less cumbersome than Golovkin?s recent slew of opponents, Monroe, 19-1 (6), presents an interesting, if anticlimactic, juncture in the Golovkin narrative. Supposedly, he?ll dance around Golovkin?s thudding blows all night. Supposedly, he?ll take the Kazakh to 12 full rounds. Whatever the sentiment may be, there?s little doubt that this is another woeful mismatch between a world-class fighter and a talented if unremarkable, upstart.
Not that the media junket will have you believe that to be the case. Rather, ?it?s a contract [sic] of styles,? Tom Loeffler, Gennady?s promoter, told ESPN. ?If Gennady is going to keep his knockout streak alive, it is going to come against a credible opponent in Willie. Monroe was one of the rare people who jumped at the opportunity to take the fight with Gennady.? How much more diluted could the terms of competition be? Monroe?s last opponents have included Brian Vera, Brandon Adams and Vitaliy Kopylenko?not exactly an impressive resume. And though ?The Monsoon,? who hails from Rochester, New York, swept the Boxcino middleweight tournament, it was a bracket that largely consisted of modest talent. It?s one thing to feel good about your technical abilities against a journeyman like Vera; it?s quite another to feel the same way against a fighter who naturally dictates the pace and punch output of his opponents. Make no mistake, Monroe is in deeper waters now, and it would behoove him to approach Saturday night with some semblance of caution than to offer deluded pronouncements about how Golovkin looked uncertain of himself during the face-off.
As in previous Golovkin bouts, the challenger wins by virtue of possibly hanging in until the final bell. Only this time, the slimmest of pickings have forced K2 to make an absolute fetish of the southpaw boxer, boxing?s exotic Other. Eternally slick, the lefty abounds with deft surprises. With seemingly every step he reveals a new angle on the canvas and a window for a countering potshot. In his head, he compulsively tallies the number of punches he has dodged. And true to spirit, his prefight rituals consist of kneeling and chanting the words, ?to hit and not get hit,? unaware that the dictum calls for two aspects of fighting.
Proportion, unfortunately, has never been the lefty?s strong suit, and in Monroe?s case, this can be extended to his ideas about boxing history as well. ?A lot of people respect me as a fighter,? Monroe told The Ring. ?They know that I?m cut from the same cloth as Andre Ward, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara. We?re bringing back the essence of boxing, which you don?t see that often anymore.? As if crowds once gathered in droves to see James Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons play hanky-panky with each other. To Monroe?s credit, he doesn?t seem to harbor that bratty sense of entitlement exhibited by his fellow cohorts. It would be wiser for him, as a professional prizefighter, to take a page from his uncle, Willie ?The Worm? Monroe, who outpointed Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1976.
For whatever intrigue this match can present, it signals, finally, that Golovkin can?t afford another Willie Monroe Jr., not at this stage of his career. At 33, Golovkin?s window for pay-per-view exposure is closing. His handlers have wisely kept him busy?with the goal of fighting four times this year?while they wait for a marquee name to emerge. But if K2 Promotions has done an excellent job in marketing Golovkin, selling out fights in arenas in both coasts and tapping into the rich Mexican fan base in California, they know that Saturday night still presents the same problems: a weak B-side. (It may be why flyweight kingpin, Roman Gonzalez, a Latino fighter, no less, was eagerly added as co-headliner to support the billing). But what if, after all these moves, no one bites? As Jimmy Tobin puts it, Golovkin, by no means a big fighter, may have to go ?eight pounds north of the middleweight division,? where he stands to lose any physical advantages that he may have, in order to find a real challenge.
If it?s a matter of style, Golovkin has seen it all before. With 350 amateur wins under his belt (including victories over southpaws Lucian Bute and Andre Dirrell), Golovkin likely won?t be surprised by what Monroe, 28, has to show. Against Brian Vera, Monroe rarely threw more than one or two punches at a time and seldom went to the body. The key is to be able to hurt Golovkin, to keep him honest, a difficult task if the plan is to dart around and touch him all night. Even more, Monroe may end up catching little more than Golovkin?s elbows and forearms.
Then there?s a difference in the footwork. By evading the action so often, Monroe will, in effect, make his own intermissions in the fight. Golovkin, on the other hand, provides an altogether more purposeful approach with his footwork by cutting off the ring. Monroe will find it tough to counterpunch when he finds that his favorite angles have been blocked. Worse, Golovkin has gladly proven that he?ll take a punch to throw one. In the end, Monroe will realize that, he too, like the rest before him, may have to trade to survive. And that, of course, should only make the Kazakh grin.
