PREVIOUSLY, as Willie Monroe Jr prepared for his WBO middleweight world title challenge against Billy Joe Saunders this Saturday (September 16), the American had complained about UK Anti-Doping regulating the fight, rather than VADA (the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association).
Frank Warren, who stages their world title fight at the Copperbox Arena in London, reacted to the challenger’s concerns. “He is coming here under the terms of the British Boxing Board of Control and what was in the contract,” the promoter said.
“What he was talking about was ridiculous because at that stage he hadn’t even registered for what he was supposed to be doing. There’s no problems with this at all. That’s just him not understanding what the regulations are. Everyone’s conforming to what they should conform to.”
The fighters had plenty more to disagree about at a press conference that was testy and at times surreal at the BT Sport studio in Stratford.
Saunders railed at Monroe, eyeing the Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin victor and declaring (as they interrupted one another), “I know I’ve got a multi, multi million pound fight in front of me. You had that in front of you, you quit [against Golovkin].”
Saunders insists he is bouncing back from the doldrums of his career. “I actually had a meeting with Frank Warren and said, ‘I don’t want to box no more.’ I’ve got a few quid and don’t want to fight anymore. But it was because I wasn’t getting what was coming to me. I want to test myself. I’ve done everything. I’ve been to the Olympic Games at 18, I’ve won Southern Area, British, Commonwealth, European, WBO world title. I thought I’ve done all that,” Billy Joe said.
“But I know I’ve got what it takes to beat Golovkin or Canelo. I know that I’m not done till I test myself… I want to fight Golovkin or Canelo to test myself at the elite level. When I went to Sheffield [to train with Dominic Ingle], where I trained for the Olympic Games, I got the hunger back and the desire back, everything.
“There is never a quit in my body. There is never, ever, ever a quit in my body.”
Watch Billy Joe Saunders discuss the Golovkin-Canelo fight here:
Video: BoxNation
