Tonight in Inglewood, California, the Kazakh middleweight monster Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) defeated game Willie “The Mongoose” Monroe, Jr. (19-2, 6 KOs) with a 6th round TKO. That makes 20 KOs in a row for Golovkin. He maintains the highest knock out ratio of any boxer in middleweight history.
Although most of the 12, 372 fans in attendance at The Forum were more than likely there for GGG, they sure got a bang for their bang by first seeing “Chocolatito,” Roman Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs).
Trained by fellow countryman and three-time world champion Alexis Argüello, the Nicaraguan flyweight champion decimated Edgar Sosa (51-9, 30 KOs) of Mexico with a second round TKO. It is not often that a little man in the fight game can gain the attention of a crowd, but “Chocolatito,” like the headliner Golovkin, demands attention, throwing punches with both precision and power—an invaluable combination to possess in the hurt business. CompuBox stats showed Gonzalez connecting, unbelievably, fifty-five percent of the time.
That set the stage for Golovkin, who recently moved with his family from Germany to Los Angeles, where many of his Mexican fans can have him closer. Putting Monroe to the canvas twice in the second round, “the Mongoose” actually began to be effective in later rounds once he stayed in the pocket and didn’t let GGG stalk him. He showed tremendous courage to get up from two second round knockdowns from none other than GGG and then somehow begin to take the fight to the monster of the middleweight division. By the fourth round, it even seemed Monroe was taking target practice with how many times he snapped GGG’s head back and let the sweat fly.
Monroe, not known for his punching power, still was able to hit a very stationary target in Golovkin. After the fight, Monroe said, “He was easy to hit, but he takes a good shot.”
Although Golovkin finished Monroe with a left hook behind the ear for another knockout on his résumé, he appeared very vulnerable tonight. As a result, the 33-year-old Kazakh may have made some potential shook opponents a little braver.
Fighters who are next in the running for the big drama show are Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto. And if these two men get to hit an unmoving target, we may see GGG’s reign as the baddest man at 160 come to an end if not witness his unmoving head come flying off his shoulders. What’s more, super-middleweight Andre Ward, who is perhaps the most skilled of any of Golovkin’s possible ring combatants, would surely, too, make Golovkin pay for not avoiding punches.
In boxing there are three basics: keep your hands up, jab, and move your head.
If you don’t move your head in boxing, you will get hit, and if you get hit, you will get hurt, eventually.
In the round 4 previously mentioned, Golovkin spent much of it asking Monroe for more. I have not seen this taunting approach used by GGG before. Maybe it was because he was landing 45 percent of the time, 49 percent of those blows being power punches. But between rounds 4 and 5, Gennady’s trainer Abel Sanchez rightly chastised his fighter. Sanchez explained that boxing is not about being tough, it’s about being excellent—about hitting and not getting hit—or as Naazim Richardson has said: “Like swimming and not getting wet.”
Apparently Golovkin gets plenty wet, but he better watch out because pretty soon he may drown.
Article by Ryan Agius
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