‘Canelo’ and Saunders resolve bust-up over ring size
BILLY Joe Saunders has confirmed his dispute with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez over the size of the ring that they will fight in has been “sorted”.
On Tuesday Saunders was threatening to call off the fight and fly home from Texas because he was unhappy with the ring dimensions, and John Ryder was mooted as a replacement for him.
He then no-showed the first planned head-to-head with Canelo of the week, before they clash in a world super-middleweight title unification fight.
But he said on Tuesday night: “I’m pleased to say the issue is sorted. The ring is not a problem. Thumbs up.”
Canelo had previously said: “I don’t care about the size of the ring. I’m just going to go there and do my job. It’s not the only excuse he’s had. He’s had plenty of excuses.
“He has to fight on Saturday [today]. The fight is going to happen. That is not a problem.”
Saunders’ fellow Brit John Ryder told
Sky Sports that he would be in Texas and willing to step in to fight Canelo.
He said: “I think [Saunders] is going to get what he wants. I was always due to go out to Dallas. Eddie wanted me to get out there and do a bit of promotion, for my up and coming fight in June. But I mean if he gives me the call, I’ll pack the gum shield and protector.”
Ryder admitted his chances of replacing Saunders were “very small” and said: “You don’t come this far in a fight to let it go at the last minute, because of a couple of foot.”
The row over the dimensions of the ring was a reminder of Saunders’ great ally Tyson Fury’s mind games with Wladimir Klitschko. In 2015 Fury and his team befuddled Klitschko by repeatedly claiming they would cancel the fight at short notice over a series of issues including the comfortability of the gloves, the sponginess of the ring canvas and Klitschko’s unsupervised hand-wraps.