Billy Joe Saunders injured again!

By Boxing News - 10/13/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: WBO middleweight title holder Billy Joe Saunders has suffered an injury training for his voluntary title defense against fringe contender Artur Akavov. As such, Saunders’ defense, which was scheduled for October 22, has been postponed until November 26 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales.

It’s unclear what will happen if Saunders suffers yet another injury while preparing for the new November 26 date. Will the WBO strip Saunders or allow him to keep postponing fight dates? You would hope that Saunders can eventually make it into the ring to make his maiden defense of his WBO title, because he’s been inactive for the entire year thus far.

The contenders in the WBO’s top 15 at middleweight haven’t had a chance to challenge for Saunder’s title. If he keeps getting injured like this over and over again, it’s going to be a real negative for the contenders and the boxing fans. Having the WBO title defended once a year is probably not a good thing for the WBO as well. Hopefully, Saunder’s injury problems don’t become a common occurrence for him as the WBO’s champion.

That’s just short of one year since the 27-year-old Saunders captured his World Boxing Organization 160lb title with a close and some would say controversial 12 round majority decision over champion Andy Lee in December 2015.

This is Saunders’ second injury while attempting to make his initial title defense. Saunders was supposed to have defended his title initially against fringe contender Max Bursak on April 30, 2016. Unfortunately for Saunders, and for the boxing fans, he suffered a hand injury that caused that fight to be cancelled altogether. Saunders was then talked about fighting on the undercard of the Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith card on September 17 on HBO pay-per-view at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. However, Saunders reportedly rejected the opponents that were offered to him, and he was subsequently not put on the card. It’s too bad, because it would have put Saunders in position to get a shot at Canelo in his next fight. Saunders may still get the fight anyway, because Canelo is going to need to fight someone when he returns to the ring in early 2017, and it’s likely that he’ll want to pick up the WBO title from Saunders. Without a lot of punching power, Saunders would be at a great disadvantage against Canelo. It would be like watching Canelo fight Liam Smith again with him winning another title against an obscure non-puncher that the U.S casual boxing fans have no clue about.
Saunders’ promoter Frank Warren said:

“We have obviously not had a lot of luck with this event, first of all being let down by Chris Eubank Jnr and now the two main fights on a card falling out on the same day. We have no choice but to postpone the card to a month later so everyone is given time to recover.”

Unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin wants to fight Saunders for his WBO title. I’m not sure if it would be good for him to try and get a fight against him. If Saunders is going to have injury problems, then Golovkin might be better off fighting guys that are more stable and can be counted on to make it to the ring on the original scheduled dates.