Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders could be POSTPONED before it’s announced

By Boxing News - 03/13/2020 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders fight was supposed to have been announced next week for May 2 in Las Vegas but now it could be postponed before it’s even been officially announced as a result of coronavirus pandemic. [ESPN MX].

Now they want to decide when the best time for both the announcement and whether the Canelo-Saunders should remain on the originally planned date of May 2. DAZN and Golden Boy Promotions wants to analyze the situation and come to a decision on what to do with the Canelo vs. Saunders fight.

It makes sense for them to study the situation, as it’s pointless to announce the Canelo-Saunders fight now for May 2 when there’s a chance it could wind up being postponed if the coronavirus doesn’t disappear.

Golden Boy and DAZN can’t afford to postpone the Canelo-Saunders fight until September 2020 due to the Gennadiy Golovkin fight. That’s the one that they want to make. If Canelo isn’t able to fight Saunders in the first half of this year due to the coronavirus epidemic, it could make it difficult to stage the fight in 2020. While it may be disappointing to British boxing fans that Canelo isn’t fighting Saunders this year, it won’t matter to U.S boxing public. Saunders is an unknown as far as casual fans go in the U.S. The hardcore fans remember Saunders from his fight against David Lemieux in which he boxed him for 12 rounds in a dull fight in 2018.

Americans have very little interest in watching Canelo fight the 30-year-old Saunders., who is more of a spoiler than a brawler. The Canelo-Saunders fight is NOT on the American boxing fans’ wish list. They want to see Canelo fight GGG, Jermall Charlo, Artur Beterbiev or Dmitry Bivol. Saunders is someone that gets talked about in terms of what American fans want to see Canelo fighting.

It’ll obviously be disappointing to British fans if Canelo’s fight with Saunders is postponed or if it doesn’t take place in 2020, but it’s bad timing right now for the fight. That’s just an unfortunate reality of what’s going on now with the COVID 19 pandemic.

Canelo vs. Golovkin 3 is a fight that outweighs a smaller Canelo-Saunders contest. So there’s little chance that we could be seeing Saunders as Canelo’s opponent for September 2020.  Canelo could be facing Ryota Murata in either late 2020 or in the first half of 2021, which means that if Saunders doesn’t get the fight this year, he may need to wait until September 2021.

At that point, Canelo may have better options for fights. Would it make sense for Canelo to fight Saunders in 2021 if the boxing public is demanding he faces Jermall Charlo? There would be no complaints from U.S fans if Canelo chooses to face Murata and Charlo in 2021, and perhaps scratching the Saunders fight off his list.

Part of the reason why the negotiations for the Canelo-Saunders fight has taken so long is that the third fight between Alvarez and GGG is being worked on for September. According to ESPN, Canelo has agreed to fight Golovkin in September, as long as GGG wins his interim fight against IBF mandatory Kamil Szeremeta in the spring or summer.

That’s supposed to be a slam dunk win for GGG over the little known Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs). For Canelo to agree to the third contest against Golovkin, DAZN reportedly had to sweeten his deal above $35 million per fight that he has on the remainder of his 11-fight, $365 million deal, according to ESPN.

It’s believed that WBO super middleweight champion Saunders was just a fighter that Canelo wanted to fight to stay busy and to win an easy title. There was no demand from boxing fans in Northern or Southern America for Canelo to fight Saunders. That was him. It would have made more business sense for Canelo to fight GGG in May of this year rather than Saunders. As such, if Canelo doesn’t fight Saunders at all in 2020, there don’t be a lot of complaints from Americans because it’s a fight very few people wanted to see.

It would be different if Saunders had been fighting good opposition making a name for himself since 2015, but he hasn’t done that. Since 2015, Saunders has been injured often and he’s fought fringe level opposition. You can’t blame Saunders for milking his WBO 160-lb title, considering that it’s worked out well for him to fight the guys he’s fought. Had Saunders fought someone good like GGG, Charlo, Murata, Danny Jacobs or Canelo in the last five years, he probably would have lost.

Saunders’ opposition since 2015:

  • Artur Akavov
  • Marcelo Esteban Coceres
  • Shefat Isufi
  • Charles Adamu
  • David Lemieux
  • Willie Monroe Jr

If you follow boxing, you’ll know those are not cutting edge fighters that Saunders has been fighting since 2015. The level of opposition that Saunders has been fighting has kept him from becoming a better-known fighter, but it’s had it’s benefits. Like Gilfoid said if Saunders had fought quality opposition in the last five years, there’s a good chance he would have been beaten. It’s a trade-off, right? Unfortunately, Saunders is someone that Canelo doesn’t need to fight in 2020 or ever because U.S fans won’t care if the match never gets made.