By Sean Jones: Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders will now be fighting in the first week of June rather than on May 2 in Las Vegas. This is due to the coronavirus pandemic. [ESPN MX]. It’s not a big deal for Canelo and Saunders to be fighting in the first week of June, considering that it’s not a fight that U.S boxing fans are eager to see.
This is Canelo’s choice to fight Saunders. It’s literally his baby. He wants this fight despite the lack of interest from U.S fans.
If Canelo pushes the fight to July, August or September, the fans won’t mind. However, Canelo is probably not going to do that because it would mess up the big money trilogy fight against Gennadiy Golovkin.
Canelo’s fight with Saunders was supposed to be announced last week, but the changing situations with the COVID 19 have gotten in the way. Even when the Canelo-Saunders fight is announced, it doesn’t mean it’ll take place in June. If large crowds still aren’t permitted to attend live events by June in the U.S, then it’s likely the Canelo vs. Saunders fight will be postponed if not canceled altogether.
Bad timing for Canelo to schedule a fight
The timing is REALLY bad for Canelo to be scheduling a fight against Saunders. for June, because there’s no way of knowing whether the coronavirus will still be around infecting people at that time. It doesn’t hurt for Canelo to schedule the fight with Saunders. If the fight can go ahead, then that’s great. As long as fans know that Canelo’s fight in June may not happen, they’ll be alright.
At this point, it’s better for Golden Boy to let boxing fans know that there’s a possibility that the Saunders fight doesn’t take place in June because of the coronavirus pandemic. If the numbers of cases are still going up by June, then makes it no sense to stage the fight. Canelo is such a big star that it wouldn’t work for him to stage his fight with Saunders behind closed doors in a TV studio.
The reality is the fight might get postponed, and he can’t afford to fight Saunders in July or August without putting the MUCH bigger fight against Gennadiy Golovkin in September in jeopardy.
It’s very unlikely that Canelo will choose to postpone the Saunders fight and reschedule it for September. If the fight can’t take place in June, it’s predictable that Canelo will throw up his hands, and move forward to the bigger fight against GGG. Perhaps Saunders would then get a shot against Canelo in 2021 or later.
Fans critical of Canelo vs. Saunders
On social media, boxing fans see Saunders as Rocky Fielding 2.0 for Canelo to get an easy payday on his DAZN contract. Saunders is an even weaker puncher than Fielding, and he brings very little to the table as an opponent for Canelo. His main asset is his ability to talk trash to get casuals and hardcore boxing fans interested in his fight. However, he has a bad accent, and he’s not easy to understand what he’s saying.
Saunders is on the bottom of the fighters that typically get mentioned by fans for who they want Canelo to fight. It’s thought that Canelo wants Saunders because he’s not a threat to beating him. In other words, it’s a showcase fight for Alvarez.
As this writer mentioned, there’s not a lot of interest from American fans in seeing Canelo fight Saunders. That’s a fight that will please some of the UK boxing fans, but not U.S fans. They want Canelo to take risks with his career by fighting guys like GGG, Jermall Charlo, Callum Smith, Caleb Plant, David Benavidez or Artur Beterbiev.