By Scott Gilfoid: If #1 WBO Billy Joe Saunders (21-0, 11 KOs) defeats WBO middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2-1, 24 KOs) in their fight on September 19th, there’s a good chance that we won’t be seeing the 25-year-old Saunders facing WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in a unification fight.
Saunders says he flat out isn’t interested in facing the hard hitting Golokvin. However, Saunders says he’d take the fight with him if he were offered a ton of money, but apart from that, he wouldn’t be all that interested in facing the Kazakhstan star. This is unfortunate for Golovkin and for the fans because if Saunders beats Lee, which is a possibility, it probably means no unification fight.
Saunders would take the fight with Golovkin if his promoter Tom Loeffler made a huge offer to him, however. Just why Loeffler would offer Saunders a bunch of money is unknown. It’s not as if Saunders is well-known to the American people.
Beating Saunders would do absolutely nothing for Golovkin. He would be in the same situation after beating Saunders than he was before that. There would be no gain at all. It actually would be a waste of Golovkin’s time because he would have wasted four months of his career preparing for a fight that the American public wouldn’t care about.
“I would never go into a fight thinking I could lose. Ever – but I don’t care what money it was, I just wouldn’t do it. (fight GGG),” Saunders said to IFL TV. “If they (Golovkin’s team) come and offered me stupid money I’d sit down and I’d think – ‘they’ve offered me good money, let me have a look at him on the internet and a look at the weigh in and I’d sit there and think, ‘yeah, I can beat him.
Saunders is facing Lee on September 19th at Thomond Park Stadium, Limerick, Ireland. Lee will have the home country advantage, and everything that comes with that. It means that if the fight ends up anywhere close, you can be that Lee will get the victory. Saunders is going to need to really dominate Lee if he wants to come out of the fight with the ‘W’, because I can’t see him winning a decision.
Lee is in a great position because he can beat Saunders by knockout or decision. Saunders doesn’t have that going for him. He’s no puncher, so you can pretty much rule out him getting a knockout. Saunders also fades late in his fights, which you don’t want to do against a puncher like Lee because he keeps his power late in his fights and is always dangerous. If Saunders gasses out against Lee like he did in his win over Chris Eubank Jr., then I see Saunders getting knocked. That’s just the way it will be.
“I’ll tell you what sort of fighter I am, I’m up, I’m straight and I’m honest. I fancy my chances with any 160 in the world. Any 160 – take him (Golovkin) out of the equation,” Saunders said. “And I’m the sort of fighter who wants to win every single fight I fight in, and I know I can beat every 160. On my day I know I can beat them all – but minus him. (GGG).”
Saunders believes he’d beat Miguel Cotto, the WBC middleweight champion if he were to be given a shot at him. I think it’s safe to say that Saunders will never get a fight against Cotto because it wouldn’t be a big enough money fight for Cotto to waste his time with it.
Comments are closed.