By Frente Unido The number one boxer in the world: @Canelo with boxing clinic on how to defeat slick southpaws: you break them.
Boxing’s Pound For Pound number one fighter is still Saul “Canelo” Alvarez whose decisive defeat of Billy Joe Saunders permits him to unify the WBO, WBA and WBC Super Middleweight Belts. The match was heralded as Canelo’s toughest challenge since his 2018 bouts with Gennady Golovkin (Triple-G), but ended in a remarkable stoppage for the Mexican boxer from Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Breakdown
Billy Joe Saunders attempted to make this fight more competitive. Initially, he was able to land shots against Canelo, peppering the face of Canelo and seemingly frustrating Canelo for rounds 2, 6 and 7. However, the ability to get comfortable inside may have been a ploy for Canelo to land that one shot at the head.
Canelo was consistingly connecting with power shots, discarding the jab unless for feinting purposes. The task of slowing Saunders was made easier over the fights progression. Every round had a significant body shot land on Saunders. This slowed him down, possibly enticing him to try his hand at shorter distances with some slick body movement, ducking underneath Canelo’s shots. The mistake he made was to duck repeatedly to the right; this is where he was timed with a brutal uppercut haymaker type shot for the ages:
Mark Tibbs discussed his decision to stop fight after Billy Joe Saunders suffered an eye socket fracture. In a post-fight interview wit Seconds Out, Tibbs noted that at the end of the 8th round, Saunders’ body language was not leading him to believe he could continue the fight. Ultimately, the trainer discussed that it was his decision – not Saunders’ – to stop the fight.
Curiously, the father of Billy Joe Saunders was also beaten by security when he tried to rush the stage upon noticing his son was suffering an injury.
Boxing Experts React
The great Julio Cesar Chaves Sr affirmed once more that Canelo is in his prime. In a message to boxing star via “Little Giant Boxing”, the Mexican legend congratulated Canelo for breaking the biggest US indoor boxing crowd as well as wishing Billy Joe a speedy recovery.
ESPN Deportes, Chava Rodriguez, was also very insightful regarding the aptitude Canelo displayed. He noted that Canelo was able to negate the pressure from Saunders and adapt his strategy. He only scored 2 rounds in favor of Saunders.
During the fight week, unfortunately, Rodriguez was verbally insulted by the Saunders entourage. In a strange way, Canelo was able to impart cosmic justice to rectify the insults from Billy Joe Saunders. Objectively, Rodriguez was able to credit Saunders with his ability to go toe-to-toe against Canelo at times, landing one-two combinations. However, the timing of some of Canelo’s counter-shots was enough to negate Saunders’ gameplan.
We are witnessing Mexican royalty truly emerge from within boxing’s ranks, with advertisements, businesses and other entities now deeply tied to the Mexican fighter. He’s like a rockstar that can fight. This comes with a lot of apprehension from some envious ranks, some motivated by business interests, but also cultural differences between many of the sport participants wanting US/American stars whose birthline is not Mexican.
Andrade Incident
Canelo was also assailed by Demetrius Andrade, a middleweight titlist whose been clamoring for a fight with Canelo for years. Andrade crashed the press conference demanding a fight, but Canelo rebuffed the fighter after being irritated with the questioning.
The event was fairly comical. At times, Eddy Reynoso would even coach Canelo responses towards Andrade’s team.
Eddy Reynoso: “dile que lo vamos a sacar del hotel…”/ (tell him will get him out of the hotel”.
Canelo: “you’re a horrible fighter. Horrible fighter.”.. “You want that payday. I know. Payday. Payday.”