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| The Mongoose says he's the one to upset Triple G |
By Jeffrey Freeman — Willie Monroe Jr., 19-1, 6 KO's, is a very confident middleweight
contender going into his May 16 challenge of WBA champion Gennady
Golovkin, 32-0, 29 KO's, at the Forum in Inglewood, California. "This is
the fight I asked for. Golovkin is the best." At just 28 years of age,
Monroe Jr. cites Sugar Ray Leonard, Pernell Whitaker, and Roy Jones Jr.
as his primary boxing influences. "The guys I look up to are fast and
elusive and can do special things that other fighters can't pu
ll off, and in such a pretty fashion."
Born to a fighting family, Monroe's great uncle Willie "The Worm" Monroe was the
first, and some say only fighter to ever conclusively defeat the great
Marvin Hagler, doing so by unanimous decision in 1976 in Philadelphia.
As you can imagine, there's persistent confusion about who's who and
how they're related.
Monroe's father, also named Willie Monroe,
was, as described by his son, "a good middleweight" in the 1990's.
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| Great Uncle Willie handled Hagler in 76 |
Monroe Jr. says that boxing is in his blood and that after he wins the
Golovkin fight on May 16, he'll give the sporting world a deeper look into his
personal life, about which he says, "I've been the underdog since I was
conceived in my mother's womb. I mean that literally. I'm one of those people who's always looking to prove people
wrong. I relish being the
underdog."
Does Monroe Jr. know he's an off the board
underdog, expected by nobody to be able to defeat the marauding
Golovkin, a winner of 19 straight by knockout, with 13 of those KO's in
defense of the WBA title Monroe Jr. will soon fight for?
Of course
he does. It just doesn't seem to bother him one bit.
"I'm the one who can take Golovkin's cloak of invincibility."
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| Big Drama Show or another KO for GGG? |
