By Dan Ambrose: Eddie Hearn says the Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders fight is agreed on and it’ll likely be announced next week for May 2 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hearn states that Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy are dealing with two canceled shows right now because of the coronavirus, and they’re looking at potential strategies.
With all cancellations of fights, Hearn says it’s possible that Canelo vs. Saunders could get moved to late May to early June. It’s up to Golden Boy if they want to make that move.
“It was due to be announced this week, but I do think it’ll be announced early next week,” said Hearn to IFL TV on the Canelo vs. Saunders fight. “I think from the Golden Boy perspective, they lost two shows this week. I think every one is getting their head around and putting a strategy together. Billy Joe and Canelo is done. All the terms are agreed in that fight.
“Will it be postponed until the end of May or early June? Maybe but that’s one for Golden Boy. At the moment, Billy Joe is out in America training. There is due to be a press conference next week, and we’ll see what happens over the next couple of days,” said Hearn.
If the Canelo-Saunders fight gets postponed until early June, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the fight winds up getting canceled altogether. What Hearn is failing to realize is that Canelo can’t fight Saunders too close to September because that’s when he’s facing Gennadiy Golovkin in a trilogy. Canelo-GGG III will get the attention of the American boxing fans and will bring in new subscribers to DAZN. The Saunders fight is just another easy throwaway for Canelo. Since Canelo signed an 11-fight, $365 million contract with DAZN, he’s used up three fights against these guys:
- Rocky Fielding
- Daniel Jacobs
- Sergey Kovalev
Of those matches, only the Jacobs fight was a competitive one. The other two were mismatches. Canelo is now looking to get another arguably easy fight in Saunders before facing a tough one in Golovkin in September. But if the Saunders gets pushed too close to September, Canelo won’t have any choice but to postpone it until 2021 or cancel it altogether. He’d probably postpone it because Saunders isn’t a threat to him.
If Canelo doesn’t face him, he’ll have pressure to fight a good 160 or 168-lb fighter. Fans will start pushing Canelo to fight someone like Jermall Charlo, David Benavidez, Callum Smith, Caleb Plant, Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev. He hasn’t looked eager to fight any of those guys because they can potentially beat him. Saunders isn’t in the same class as those fighters.
“That’s not a comment by me [Canelo-Saunders being pushed to the summer]. It’s not even been discussed,” said Hearn. “But the further things are right now, the more chance they have of happening. so May the 2nd is still seven weeks away. Again, you’d like to think there’s a very strong chance. So for us, we’ve got Dillian Whyte on May 2nd,” said Hearn.
Anything is possible as far as the Canelo vs. Saunders fight goes. It’s a bad time right now for that fight to be scheduled, and it gets any kind of delay, it’s pointless for Canelo to hold onto it for this year. DAZN wants Canelo to fight GGG in September, and the Saunders is another Fielding-level gimme to the Mexican star.
Canelo can’t fight Saunders in June because he won’t have time to rest before needing to start his training camp for the Golovkin trilogy in September. Although Canelo isn’t expected to take punishment in the Billy Joe fight, the training camp will be hard, and he’s not going to want to jump right back into an even harder camp to prepare for the Golovkin trilogy in September.
“We’ve sold over 10,000 tickets already,” said Hearn for the Whyte vs. Alexander Povetkin fight on May 2. “Canelo hasn’t even gone on sale yet. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but the terms are agreed [for Canelo vs. Saunders].
“We’ll see where it goes. We are dictated to by the government and whatever they tell us we have to do. Of course, it’s [Daniel Dubois vs. Joe Joyce fight] is in jeopardy, but it’s not down to me, it’s not down to Frank and it’s down to nobody other than the government to tell you what you can or can’t do.
“So, everything is in jeopardy, but at the moment the better thing to say is right now we’re full steam ahead. We’re all systems go, but that can change at any moment and it’s a changing landscape. We’ll make sure we keep the fans up to speed every move to let you know what we’re doing. If you buy a ticket and any show is canceled, you will get a full refund,” said Hearn.
If the Canelo-Saunders fight actually takes place, it’ll be surprising. There’s so much going against it happening right now. If not for the GGG fight that absolutely needs to happen in September, then you could say with confidence that Canelo vs. Saunders will take place in 2020. Canelo has to get that fight out of the way against Golovkin because it’s what DAZN and the boxing public wants. Giving DAZN and the public another mismatch by fighting Saunders does nothing for anyone other than saving Canelo from potentially losing.
