Seanie Monaghan: “My Whole Boxing Life Sums Up To This 30 Minute Fight”

So, Seanie Monaghan, how big is this one?

The Saturday fight against Sullivan Barrera on Facebook, from the Aviator complex in Brooklyn…looks like a must win?

“Do or die, bro,” said the 37 year old Long Islander with a 29-1 record (17 KOs). “I desperately need to beat this guy and I’ve done everything I can to prepare for this fight, physically and mentally.”

I spoke to Seanie’s long-time trainer, Joe Higgins, last week, before Higgins' fighter Patrick Day weighed in the day before the Danny Jacobs-Sergey Derevyanchenko topped card at MSG Theater. “You know, I just like the way Seanie’s thinking,” he told me. “He’s thinking of it as his last chance. He’s really trained harder than he ever has in his life in his 17 year career, he’s absolutely ready, we know Barrera’s gonna bring it, we think it’s a fan-friendly fight, but we also think we’re the sharper of the two, and we expect to pull away in that fight. Big deal for Seanie, you know, the winner’s looking at a title shot.”

The card looks like this…

Main Events works in concert with Golden Boy on this series.

You may recall that on July 15, 2017, Higgins saw his kid get stopped out by Marcus Browne, a sparring mate, at Nassau Coliseum. That was a step back in a step up fight, it must be said. A straight left hand down the pike dropped the Irish-American in round one. In round two, right hooks to the head buzzed Seanie, and he ate shots on the ropes, so the ref pulled the plug.

They hugged after, but of course, hurt lingered.

So, did Higgins have to do a re-tooling on Seanie’s brain, get him back up to top level, mentally, emotionally? “Not quite, because we did have a pretty quick fight (vs. Evert Bravo, Nov. 4, 2017, UD win for SM), he did really well in that fight, he won. And quite frankly Sean stays in the gym year-round. He gets such great work with the elite pros in New York, they all come to spar with Sean, he’s absolutely ready to go. Sean took that (loss to Browne) as a learning experience, he kinda knows exactly what not to do, I guess. That said, if you don’t learn from those things, then you shouldn’t even get back in that ring again. And we certainly have!”

And what does Monaghan think of Barrera, on paper, days away? “A warrior like me. Comes to rumble. Gets dropped and gets up fighting even harder. It’s gonna be a hard night's work but I’ll get the job done!”

OK, Seanie, what should we the people know about you coming in to this fight against 36 year old Barrera (21-2, lost to Andre Ward, won four straight, then lost to Dmitriy Bivol his last time out). Last word!

“Just know I’m legitimately in the best shape of my life and this is everything for me,” Monaghan said. “My whole boxing life sums up to this 30 minute fight!”