By Jeff Aranow: Kell Brook recommends that Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo Alvarez swerve around WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (26-0, 12 KOs) to avoid trouble. Brook says that’s what he would do if he were them. He thinks Saunders has got too much talent for them to fight him.
Golovkin isn’t the type to avoid a fighter. He’s probably not going to listen to Brook’s advice to swerve a fight with Saunders unless suffers a defeat to Canelo in their rematch next May.
It’s debatable whether Saunders has too much talent for Golovkin and Canelo to beat him or not. What’s not debatable is Saunders having more talent than the limited former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux. Even if Saunders does ultimately fail the test when he meets up with Golovkin and Canelo, he can at least know that he’s a better fighter than Lemieux. They’ll never be able to take that away from him.
Saunders beat the brakes off Lemieux in winning a 12 round unanimous decision in front of the Canadian’s own fans at the Place Bell in Laval, Canada. Lemieux might have deserved to win the 11th round. That was the only round that I could justify giving to him, and that was a close round. Saunders landed more shots in the 11th, but Lemieux connected on several hard punches. Saunders made it possible for Lemieux to land, as he stopped moving and stood and fought him. Saunders was back on his bike in the 12th, and easily won the fight.
“I told you. He made him look silly,” said Brook to IFL in commenting on Saunders’ impressive win over Lemieux. “I told you. He made a statement. Nobody had made him look as silly as that. He made the fight easy,” said Brook.
Golovkin made Lemieux look bad in stopping him in the 8th round in their fight in 2015. Golovkin didn’t showboat as much as Saunders and the power shots he landed gave him more problems. Lemieux was down in the 5th, and badly hurt in the 8th.
“Back to back camps. He was on it tonight,” said Brook about Saunders. “I didn’t expect him to be that dominating, but it surprised me. Lemieux is a top-level fighter, but he was hitting fresh air. He bamboozled him, used the ring very well, and stood him on his head. He ran out of ideas after round 2. Billy Joe did what he wanted to. What’s next? Golovkin-Canelo, he’s at that level. He made a statement tonight. He couldn’t touch him. If I was them [Canelo and Golovkin], I wouldn’t take it, because he’s got all the moves. He’s got a good chin, and he’s a tricky southpaw,” said Brook of Saunders.
Maybe Golovkin and Canelo should listen to Brook’s advice and avoid Saunders. If they do that, then Saunders isn’t going to have too many big names to fight. He’d have to be contest fighting Daniel Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade and Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Those are arguably polished fighters than Lemieux with great amateur experience. Saunders might have a tough time out-boxing those guys.
