Billy Joe Saunders vs. Willie Monroe Jr. possible for September 16

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: There’s talk that WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) will be making his next defense of his title against possibly #5 WBO Willie Monroe Jr. (21-2, 6 KOs) on September 16 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. The fight hasn’t been confirmed, but there;’s a lot of talk that Monroe could be the guy Saunders faces.

Monroe Jr. is talking about him fighting Saunders on his social media site. Saunders’ September 16 fight will be announced this week on July 4 along with WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan’s next fight.

It doesn’t make sense for Saunders to fight Monroe Jr., because there are higher ranking contenders in the WBO’s top 15 that would likely jump at the chance to fight Saunders. David Lemieux is one of them, as is Ryota Murata and Rob Brant. The boxing public would like to see Saunders defend against Lemieux or #6 WBO Daniel Jacobs.

Those would be tough opponents for Saunders to defend against. Jacobs has already expressed interest in facing Saunders. If the WBO is going to allow Saunders to take another voluntary defense, then a fight against Jacobs would be a great one.

The idea of taking voluntary defenses is to face the best known guy with the least amount of threat. Monroe Jr. isn’t a big puncher, so he would give Saunders a very good chance of winning the fight. The justification for Saunders being allowed to make another voluntary defense would be the unexpected arrest of his mandatory challenger Avtandil Khurtsidze.

The WBO might give Saunders a break in that case, because it wasn’t his fault that his opponent couldn’t take the fight. Monroe is still not a great option, but he’s a safe one for Saunders. It would still be a tough fight for the 27-year-old Saunders to deal with a fighter like Monroe. He’s a big improvement over Saunders’ last opponent Artur Akavov.

We already saw how Saunders struggled and labored against Akakov. If Saunders can’t fight at a high enough level for 12 rounds, he could be in trouble with Monroe Jr., because he’ll walk him down the way he did Rosado. Saunders doesn’t have good stamina. That’s one problem that he’s had for the last 3 years when facing good opposition.

Saunders gassed out against Chris Eubank Jr. in 2014, and then Andy Lee in 2015, and finally Artur Akavov in 2016. There’s been no improvement at all in Saunders’ stamina. If Saunders gasses out against Monroe, he could lose the fight. If Saunders is given a controversial 12 round decision over Monroe, he’ll take a lot of criticism from the boxing world.

Ideally, the judges need to do their level best to get the scoring correct for this fight, because there are a lot of boxing fans who feel that Eubank Jr., Lee and Akavov were all robbed of victories against Saunders.

You hate to say that Monroe Jr. needs a knockout of Saunders in order for him to get the win, but I think that might be the case. I think Monroe Jr. will be in the same position as Manny Pacquiao was last Saturday night in him getting arguably robbed in fighting Australian Jeff Horn in his home country of Australia.

Monroe probably won’t be able to knockout Saunders, as he lacks punching power. Monroe has good talent, hand speed, defense and overall boxing skills, but he can’t punch hard enough for him to beat someone like Saunders. Monroe has trouble when facing guys that can punch.

Besides Golovkin stopping Monroe, he also struggled in his fight against journeyman Darnell Boone in losing an 8 round split decision in March 2011. Boone used his punching power to get the beater of Monroe in that fight. Saunders isn’t a big puncher, but he can punch hard enough to knockout Monroe.

Here are the top 5 contenders in the WBO’s rankings:

1. Saul Canelo Alvarez

2. David Lemieux

3. Ryota Murata

4. Rob Brant

5. Willie Monroe Jr.

”I see food,” said Monroe Jr. in responding to someone talking about him facing Saunders on September 16. ”Only one way to find out,” said Monroe in reply to someone saying Saunders will beat him. ”I can’t wait to come to the UK.”

If an in shape and highly motivated Saunders is what is waiting for Monroe Jr. on September 16, then I don’t see how Monroe can win.

Saunders, 27, had planned on defending his title on July 8 against his mandatory challenger Avtandil Khurtsidze. That fight went up in smoke after Khurtsidze was arrested.

The World Boxing Organization had ordered Saunders to make back to back title defenses against his mandatory challengers. Fighting Khurtsidze would have fulfilled one of the mandatory defenses for Saunders.

Monroe, 30, fought middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in May 2015 in losing a 6th round knockout. Monroe had his moments in the fight, but Golovkin eventually knocked him down in the 6th round to get the knockout. Monroe Jr. quit after getting up off the deck in round 6. Monroe gave Golovkin a decent test in fighting him hard on the inside.

Golovkin looked out of breath in the 4th and 5th rounds from the fast pace of the fight. Golovkin’s power proved to be too much for Monroe to withstand. Since that fight with GGG, Monroe Jr. has won his last two matches in defeating John Thompson and Gabriel Rosado. Those are fairly good fighters, but Monroe did a good job of out-boxing both of them.

If Monroe is the guy that Saunders is facing, then the WBO will need to give the green light for that fight to take pace, because Saunders is supposed to be fighting his mandatory challenger, not taking a voluntary defense again. Saunders won his WBO title in December 2015 in beating Andy Lee. Saunders was unable to defend his WBO belt for one year due to injury problems.

Saunders finally defended his WBO title after one year out of the ring in beating Russian fringe contender by a close 12 round unanimous decision in December 2016. Akavov gave Saunders all he could handle for 12 rounds. Some boxing fans believe Akavov deserved the victory. However, he was fighting in Saunders’ in the UK, and likely would have needed a knockout to get the win.