By Scott Gilfoid: The World Boxing Organization has ordered WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0, 12 KOs) to fight back to back mandatory defenses of his WBO 160lb title due to his inactivity since winning their belt in 2015, according to Fight News. However, one of Saunders’ mandatory defenses might wind up being Saul Canelo Alvarez if the WBO catapults him above the current #1 Avtandil Khurtsidze.
Some in the boxing world might see that as being unfair to Khurtsidze, because he’s been Saunders’ No.1 contender for some time, and he STILL hasn’t been given a title shot. For Canelo to jump ahead of Khurtsidze to become the NEW mandatory challenger might look strange.
Canelo isn’t ranked in the WBO’s top 15 at 160. However, Canelo does hold the WBO 154lb title with the organization. That might be reason enough for them to make Canelo Saunders’ mandatory in front of #1 Khurtsidze. It’s hard to imagine Saunders beating Canelo. That strikes me as a mismatch. But for the sake of argument, if Saunders beat Canelo, he would then be expected to face Khurtsidze. However, that wouldn’t stop Saunders from making a unification fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC Gennady Golovkin.
The WBO is hardly punishing Saunders. If anything, they’re helping him out by telling him he has to fight back to back mandatory defenses. The only way the WBO isn’t helping Saunders is if they don’t make Canelo his new WBO mandatory challenger. That would mean that Saunders would need to face the dangerous Khurtsidze after his mismatch against Akavov. If Saunders makes it through a training camp without pulling out of the fight due to another injury, he could suffer his first official loss of his career.
Khurtsidze would be a handful for Saunders, who appears to be little more than a six round fighter at best. Khurtsidze doesn’t run out of gas like Saunders does, he would be all over him in a 12 round fight, making him miserable. I honestly don’t see that fight happening, because I suspect that Canelo will be vaulted to the top of the WBO’s rankings in the 160lb division, and he’ll be the one that will be looking to pick up Saunders WBO title from him in February 2017. Yes, we’re probably talking about the fight being a catch-weight at 158lbs.
If Saunders refuses to agree to the catchweight, then I imagine Canelo will show that he’s the A-side by backing out of the fight and going in another direction. That would leave Saunders having to face Khurtsidze, which would be a smaller money fight filled with just as much dangerous as the Canelo fight for Saunders. Golovkin probably won’t be available in early 2017, because he’s got to fight WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs in the first quarter of next year.
The World Boxing Association ordered the Golovkin-Jacobs fight. If Golovkin chooses not to take the fight, it’s doubtful that the WBA would accept that news without stepping in and stripping him of his strap. As such, Saunders isn’t in a great position to bargain with Canelo once that fight rolls around for him.
Saunders will need to take that fight at 158 against Canelo and be happy that the Mexican star isn’t telling him that he needs to boil down to 155 in order to fight him. With the way Saunders balloons up between fights, it would be in his best interest to stay as low as possible after he gets done with his mismatch against Akavov on November 26. The last thing Saunders needs is for him eat his way into the 190s, and then have to trim that weight off so that he can make the 158lb catchweight that Canelo will in variably be asking him to take.
What the WBO is basically telling Saunders by ordering him to fight two mandatories back to back is he can no longer take voluntary defenses, but he CAN fight a unification match against Golovkin and Canelo once he’s made the news mandatory challenger. The WBO’s move will make sure that Saunders only takes big fights for his next two fights after what appears to be a mismatch against Akavov on November 26. There’s no word what the WBO will do if Saunders gets injured once again while preparing for Akavov. Does the WBO order that Saunders fight THREE mandatory defenses in a row or do they strip him of his strap due to him being injury prone?
Saunders, 27, is scheduled to fight little known #11 WBO fringe contender Artur Akavov (16-1, 7 KOs) on November 26 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales. Saunders was supposed to have fought Akavov on October 22 on BoxNation, but Saunders suffered a muscle injury. The fight was then rescheduled for November 26. Before that, Saunders was scheduled to fight fringe contender Max Bursak on April 30 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England.
Unfortunately, Saunders suffered a hand injury that caused the Bursak fight to be canceled. At the time, Saunders said to skysports.com, “I’m bitterly disappointed. This is boxing and these things happen.” It’s true that injuries do happen, but when they happen over and over again, the sanctioning bodies need to do something to make sure champions don’t sit on their belts for long periods of time without defending them. The WBO is now going to make it tough on Saunders to sit on his WBO title for much longer. However, they’re not going to cancel his voluntary defense against Akavov, so at least Saunders has one sure thing defense before he has to face what could be a dangerous defense for him.
There’s still a month to go before Saunders’s fight against Akavov, and anything is possible when it comes to injuries. I’d like to think that Saunders will be able to make that date on November 26 to get the Akavov fight out of the way, but coming events casts their shadows before. For some reason, Saunders seems to be injury plagued, and I don’t expect that to get better as he gets older. It might not matter though, because Saunders’ time as the WBO champion appears to be heading to the end.