WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) has been trying his best to intimidate and taunt his opponent Willie Monroe Jr. (21-2, 6 KOs) to get an extra edge against him in their fight this Saturday at the Copper Box Arena in London, England.
Saunders, 28, has been bugging Monroe Jr. without end about him quitting in the 6th round in his fight with middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in 2015. Saunders sees that as weakness, and he’s been ragging Monroe about it since their fight was made. Saunders clearly feels he needs an edge for him beat Monroe Jr., who is obviously a very shy person outside of the ring.
Saunders has mistaken Monroe’s shyness as a sign of weakness unfortunately. Saunders will find out the hard way on Saturday that Monroe Jr. isn’t timid when it comes to fighting. Hopefully, Saunders doesn’t win another controversial like his last one in the UK against Artur Akaov, because he deserved to lose that fight. You can only go so far in wining controversial decisions.
Sooner or later, the judges will get it right and you’ll end up losing. Thus far, Saunders has been involved controversial fights in his last 2 bouts against Akavov and Andy Lee. Saunders ran out of gas in the 6th round in both of those fights, just like he did in his fight with Chris Eubank Jr. in 2014. Lee deserved a draw, and Akavov should have been given a win in my view.
“Look at the fear in your eyes,” said Saunders to Monroe Jr. “Don’t start crying, Willie. Don’t cry. Look at me then. You can’ look at me in the eye.”
Saunders is going to be the one crying giant crocodile tears on September 16 if he runs out of gas and gets beaten by Monroe Jr. A loss for Saunders will kiss goodbye his dream of fighting Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or Saul Canelo Alvarez. Saunders has been targeting the winner of that fight for a long time now, because he can get a good payday fighting one of those guys. But they’re not going to pay any attention to fighting Saunders if he gets beaten by Monroe Jr.
Saunders isn’t a big name in the U.S, so once he loses his World Boxing Organization title, he’s someone to be ignored. He’s not a star. He’s just a paper champion right now at 160. Saunders wouldn’t be worth fighting at all if Golovkin wasn’t so preoccupied with winning all the middleweight titles. This is Golovkin’s goal, and it puts him at the mercy for making fights that the boxing world isn’t interested in seeing between him and Saunders.
Canelo has his feet more firmly planted on the ground when it comes to his goals. He only wants to fight the best. He doesn’t care about collecting paper titles that the boxing public doesn’t care a fig about. Canelo recently picked up the WBO 154 lb. title after beating Liam Smith for it, and the boxing public didn’t care at all about that fight. It brought in just 300,000 buys, which he should be thankful for.
Saunders tried to get Monroe to come within breathing distance of him for a stare down even though neither of them were on stage. Monroe Jr. told Saunders he smelled and declined his request. This seemed to cause Saunders immense joy, as he acted like he’d won a great victory of Monroe. It was petty stuff. Taunting Monroe Jr. outside of the ring won’t make a bit of difference if Saunders can’t get the job done on Saturday night when the two of them square off. If Monroe Jr. whips Saunders, then he continues to play mind games all he wants with Monroe Jr. after the fight is over, but he’ll still be the loser. This is a sport. You don’t win fights by taunting your opponent. You must perform inside the boxing ring.
I see Saunders as a 6-round fighter. He’s done after 6 rounds unless he’s facing some awful opponent with boxing zero skills. Saunders’ stamina is horrible for some reason. I guess it must do with him gaining so much weight in between fights with his eating. Needing to take off all that blubber really drains Saunders, and leaves him too weak to fight hard beyond the 6th round.
“Why did he quit,” said Saunders to Boxing Social about Monroe. “He tried to avoid it. He didn’t want to hear it. I think he’s a good boxer. I’ve said that from day one. You can have all the boxing ability. You can have all the power that you want. But if you feel like you can fight another day, it’s no good. We’ll see.”
If Saunders can get past Monroe Jr. on Saturday, it’ll be intriguing to see what happens to him when he gets inside the ring with the winner of the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight. Saunders might not quit against either of them, but I think he’ll take a beating and end up wishing he’d quit. I think his trainer will toss in the towel to save him. Saunders is likely going to need to fight another mandatory challenger after his fight against Monroe Jr., as Canelo and Golovkin will likely fight each other in a rematch rather than the winner moving on to face Saunders for his paper title.
There’s a heck of a lot more money in a second Canelo-GGG fight than for either of them to move on and face Saunders for his WBO trinket. The U.S boxing fans aren’t going to care about Canelo or Golovkin fighting Saunders for his WBO strap. That’s small stuff for the average fans. They don’t care of Golovkin wins another title. It obviously is important for Golovkin, as he seems to feel that winning all 4 titles will somehow validate his career. The reality is the boxing fans don’t care about all that. If they did guys like Terence Crawford would be a huge star. He’s not despite him briefly having all 4 world titles in his possession at 140.
It no longer matters whether a champion has unified the division he fights in. The boxing public in the U.S are more interested in exciting match-ups and fighters with crowd-pleasing styles. Saunders is not an exciting match-up for Canelo or Golovkin. He’s just weak-punching, trash talking paper champion, with stamina problems. If I’m Saunders, I’d start getting mentally prepared for having to fight David Lemieux after he gets by Monroe Jr. this Saturday, if he gets by him.
I see Saunders-Monroe Jr. as a 50-50 fight, but I think Saunders will get the decision due to the fight taking place in the UK in front of his British boxing fans. I don’t see Monroe Jr. having much of a chance of getting a decision against Saunders. It’s good that Saunders is facing Monroe Jr. instead of Lemieux, because he’d get knocked out by him. If Saunders must face Lemieux next, then that’s endgame for him. Lemieux will surely knock him out and take his WBO title. Saunders can taunt Lemieux for months in the buildup to their fight, but it’s still not going to help him when the two of them gets inside the ring and start trading shots. Lemieux will make quick work of Saunders in my view.