By Charles Brun: Billy Joe Saunders says he’s contemplating retirement from boxing following his injury stoppage loss to Canelo Alvarez last month on May 8th.
People are going to say Canelo retired Saunders if he elects to give it up at this point 12-year professional career? Can Billy Joe live with people branding him a quitter?
In an interview, the former two-division world champion Saunders (30-1, 14 KOs) told Talksport that it’s “50/50 that he hangs up his gloves after suffering a fractured orbital bone.
The 31-year-old Saunders says his dad will play a part in his ultimate decision to retire or fight on.
Of course, if Saunders does choose to walk away from the sport, it’s going to reinforce the view that he’s a ‘quitter’ in the eyes of many boxing fans, who already believe he quit on his stool in the Canelo fight.
It won’t be a surprise if Saunders does retire because he got a massive $8 million payday against Canelo, and he’s not likely to get anywhere near that kind of money fighting anyone else at 168 or 160.
“My dad will have a big say. It’s 50/50,” said Billy Joe Saunders to Talksport on the possibility he retires. “Whether I think I will have one/a couple more, it’s got to be the right fights. If he says, ‘Leave it, son,’ that’s probably what I’ll do.”
Saunders doesn’t say who he considers the “right fights” for him continuing to fight on, but it’s likely he’s referring to Gennadiy Golovkin or maybe Chris Eubank Jr.
Unfortunately, Saunders can forget about GGG fighting him because that will not happen, given his situation with his loss to Alvarez.
Saunders can certainly get a fight against Eubank Jr, but does he have the stomach for a rematch at this point in his career?
Billy Joe was fortunate to get a 12 round split decision over Eubank Jr in 2014, as he fell apart in the second half when Chris stopped posing and went on the attack.
In a rematch, Eubank Jr won’t mess around and will press Saunders the entire time, wearing him down and likely leading to him quitting once again.
Going into the Canelo fight, Saunders had a net worth of $2.5 million, according to wealthygenius.com. So with the $8M that he pocketed for the Canelo clash, that puts Billy Joe’s net worth at around $10 million.
It would be mighty tempting for any fighter to retire with that kind of loot in their bank accounts, particularly if they were looking at a long grueling road ahead.
If Saunders chooses to stay around, he’d likely have to beat guys like David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, and Chris Eubank Jr to earn a rematch with Canelo. Good luck with that.
That’s a dirty back road that Saunders would have to try and capture another world title at 168, and it’s doubtful he has the talent, stamina, or the health to make it back to the top.
You can argue the only reason Saunders became a world champion at 168 is that the WBO title was vacant and his opponent was an unknown guy named Shefat Isufi. The WBO basically gave Saunders the title by ranking Isufi high instead of someone talented like David Benavidez.
As far as I can tell, I can’t see Saunders beating any of those guys or even being competitive in a real way.
“It’s a bad injury, an injury I thought I’d never get, but you never know what’s gonna happen in boxing,” said Saunders.
“As a fighter, I wanted to go on. I sat down, and I could hear Ben [Davison] telling me in the corner it was over before I even sat down. I was shaking my head to say, ‘No way,'” said Saunders.
Many boxing fans believe something different about what took place in the corner after the eighth round. They think that when Saunders shook his head, he was being asked by his corner, ‘Do you want to continue?’
It doesn’t matter what Saunders says. Fans think he quit on his stool against Canelo because he had no desire to go out on his shield by coming out for the eighth round in a close fight.