Willie Monroe Jr challenges Billy Joe Saunders for the WBO middleweight title on Saturday boosted by a delayed flight as Hurricane Irma meant he was able to attend the birth of his daughter.

The American will fight to win the only one of the four world middleweight titles not involved in the superfight between Saul Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin in Las Vegas just hours later.

Monroe Jr will hope he can earn a rematch against Golovkin.

Saturday's fight at London's Copper Box Arena represents his second chance to claim a world title, having been stopped by Golovkin in six rounds back in 2015.

That defeat has inspired taunts from Saunders that he is a "quitter", but having insisted his surrender to the heavy-handed Kazakh did not owe to a lack of heart, he revealed he had been one of the few to benefit from the devastation of Hurricane Irma.

"I was mad, kind of hurt, because I wasn't going to be home for the birth of my daughter," said Monroe Jr, from New York.

"We went to get on a flight (to London) on Tuesday - they said: 'Because of the hurricane, your flight is delayed until tomorrow'.

"Which means I got here almost a day-and-a-half later. I've got a baby girl - my wife's due date was the 12th. My baby girl pops up - God shows favour to humble people."

Of Saunders' repeated accusations he has no heart, the 30-year-old, who at the start of Thursday's press conference said he had only showed up to avoid a fine, said: "A lot want to put on this purple badge, heart. Then two years after their career they have no money and they can't talk.

"I have beautiful kids, a stunning wife; I want to be able to look at my wife and say: 'You're still as beautiful as you were' in 30 years. I don't want my kids to come look at me and say: 'Daddy doesn't see me, daddy doesn't understand me'.

"All of us fighters have heart - if I was a real quitter, as people like to call me, I would have quit after the Darnell Boone fight (a split-decision defeat in 2011).

"If I was a quitter, after I lost to Golovkin, I wouldn't have come back and beat two top guys (John Thompson and Gabriel Rosado).

"After I've beaten his a*** I'm going to be able to go home and say to my son: 'Gabriel, I love you'."

Saunders, at 160lbs, physically convinces perhaps for the first time in his career and, having relocated from Hertfordshire to Sheffield to work with new trainer Dominic Ingle, he said to his challenger: "Do you remember how you felt in that fight?

"Do you remember that stoppage? That feeling you had just before you said: 'I'm done'? You beat the count.

"Boxers don't quit - boxers cannot say: 'I quit'. If your trainer had pulled you out, I'd say: 'Fair play'.

"You said to yourself: 'I'm done'. Anybody who says they're done does not deserve to be a world champion - you're in the wrong game.

"If ever a quitter won a world title then boxing is a circus."