‘Canelo’ stops Saunders to unify titles
Mexico superstar seizes Briton’s belt after he fails to come out in 9th round
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez stopped Billy Joe Saunders in eight rounds to unify three super middleweight titles in front of the largest US crowd in history to watch an indoor boxing event.
Four-weight world champion Alvarez retained his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles and seized Saunders’ World Boxing Organisation belt when the previously undefeated Briton retired on his stool after taking a beating in the eighth round.
Alvarez won by technical knockout after Saunders’ corner called a halt in front of 73,126 fans at AT&T Stadium, which was also the biggest to watch an American sports event since the coronavirus pandemic. Saunders didn’t budge from his stool saying he couldn’t see out of his right eye which was badly swollen from Alvarez’s precision blows.
Alvarez could sense victory in the eighth as he chased the southpaw around the ring waving his arms in the air as if to let the proMexican crowd know that the end was near. “I knew it,” Alvarez said. “I think I broke his cheek. He didn’t come out to fight because I broke his cheek.”
Saunders headed from the ring to the hospital to get medical treatment on his injured eye.
The previous largest indoor crowd for a boxing card in the United States had been 63,350 for Muhammad Ali’s rematch against Leon Spinks in 1978.
Alvarez, who improved to 561-2 with 38 knockouts, was ahead on all three judges’ scorecards, 78-74, 78-74 and 77-75, when Saunders did not come out for the ninth round.
The 31-year-old Saunders, who dropped to 30-1 with 14 KOs, had during fight week argued, and won, his case to increase the size of the ring from 20 feet to 22 feet. But no amount of extra space was going to allow him to escape Alvarez’s devastating punching power.
The victory serves as another step in Alvarez’s quest to dominate the 168-pound (76-kilogram) division. The Mexican pound-forpound king’s only career loss to date came as a 23-year-old against the legendary Floyd Mayweather Jnr in 2013. He has 13 wins and a draw since losing to Mayweather by majority decision. On Saturday night, the 30-year-old Alvarez bided his time until he could impose his will on Saunders, who had never faced an opponent of this magnitude.
Alvarez often brutally overpowers his opponents before knocking them out and even though that was not the case this time in Arlington, he followed the game plan set out by his trainers to perfection.
“I said before the fight that it was going to develop by seventh and eighth round,” Alvarez said. “I was winning round by round. I started to adjust really quick.”
Alvarez has now beaten seven English challengers in his career. That streak began with a points decision against Matthew Hatton when Alvarez was 20 years old in 2011, continued through a victory over Liverpool’s Callum Smith in December, and now includes former WBO middleweight champion Saunders.