Canelo
Willie Monroe Jr. claims he is a strong candidate as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s next opponent. Reuters/Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Boxing middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr believes he is still in the mix to earn a fight with WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on the Cinco de Mayo weekend.

Alvarez has yet to pick an opponent for his next fight on May 7, but according to Monroe himself, he is in the sweepstakes to land a rubber match with the Mexican redhead. The 29-year-old American is one of the fighters being considered by Golden Boy Promotions to fight Canelo, along with the likes of Gabriel Rosado, Liam Smith, and Miguel Cotto.

Monroe is coming off against a TKO defeat over unified middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin, who has a date with Alvarez in September for the WBC middleweight belt. According to Dan Ambrose of Boxing News 24, Monroe appears as Golden Boy Promotions’ favourite to fight Alvarez rather than Rosado or Smith as “The Mongoose” does not have the punching power to defeat Canelo despite being a top 15 rated contender.

“Golden Boy doesn’t seem interested in putting Canelo in with someone that could potentially beat him like Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade,” Ambrose wrote. “He [Monroe] doesn’t have the punching power or the size to blast him out the way that Charlo and Andrade would, and it would give the fans a good comparison in seeing how Canelo deals with a fighter that Golovkin stopped last year.”

Meanwhile, Golovkin, who is also set to take on a voluntary defense in April, will be looking for an alternative opponent after WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders declined an offer of $4 million to fight “GGG.” K2 Promotions managing director Tom Loeffler said they will continue to look for the best fighter who could face Golovkin at Madison Square Garden on Apr. 23, which will likely be the Kazakh’s IBF mandatory challenger Tureano Johnson.

“As we always said, unfortunately, we cannot force other champions to fight Gennady Golovkin,” Loeffler told World Boxing News. “Billy Joe Saunders just had a big win to claim his title, so hopefully, he will fight GGG in the future.

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