Billy Joe Saunders will come back insists Eddie Hearn

By Boxing News - 05/12/2021 - Comments

By Barry Holbrook: Eddie Hearn insists that Billy Joe Saunders will rise again and come back to resume his career after suffering a potentially career-ending eye injury against pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez last Saturday.

Assuming Saunders does choose to come back, he’ll have no shortage of potential dance partners. It’s reasonable to assume that Saunders could get a fight against Gennadiy Golovkin at this point.

That’s a fight that Billy Joe has desired for many years. It would be another big payday for Saunders, but it’s not likely to fill a large stadium like AT&T in Arlington, Texas.

Hearn admits that former WBO super middleweight champion Saunders (30-1, 14 KOs) will be dealing with pain and mental anguish from the loss and multiple fractures he suffered to his right orbital bone.

Saunders suffered a quadripod fracture of his right orbital bone during the eighth round when WBA/WBC 168-lb champion Canelo (56-1-2, 38 KOs) hit him with a peach of a right uppercut.

Image: Billy Joe Saunders will come back insists Eddie Hearn

Hearn believes Saunders can come back from injury

Although the 31-year-old Saunders had successful surgery performed on his injured right eye last Sunday, there still doubts whether he’ll be able to return to the ring.

Besides the unknowns about whether Saunders can physically come back, there’s the question of whether he’ll want to.

Saunders reportedly made $8 million from last Saturday’s fight with Canelo, and that means he’s set for life unless he blows the money somehow.

“His trainer pulled him out, but he can hold his head up high, in my opinion, and he’s still one of the best middleweights and super-middleweights in the world,” said Eddie Hearn to Sky Sports News about Saunders.

As far as Hearn’s comment about Saunder’s trainer pulling him out of the fight, that’s not believed 100% by the fans. Many of them think Billy Joe flat-out quit when the going got tough.

A fairly large number of people believed Saunders quit, given that they saw him shaking his head in the corner after the eighth round.

Anyway, this is neither here nor there. The main thing is, Saunders suffered an eye injury, and he couldn’t continue.

Image: Billy Joe Saunders will come back insists Eddie Hearn

“His profile has risen greatly through it, but it is a tough sport, it was a bad injury, and when you’ve won two division world championships and tried to unify against the pound-for-pound No 1, what does the hunger say inside you?” said Hearn.

In some respects, Saunders’ profile has risen from the loss, but not entirely. One problem is that Saunders’ right eye didn’t look that bad when he returned to his corner after round eight.

Saunders looked relatively fine compared to other fighters who have suffered bad cuts and swelling of their eyes. That’s something that makes him look like he quit in the eyes of many fans.

I think he’s going to come back. I think he’ll be hurting physically and emotionally from the defeat and we’ll support him. And I believe you’ll see him back again,” said Hearn of Billy Joe.