Billy Joe Saunders was a keen spectator as Canelo Alvarez made light work of Avni Yildrim last weekend in a fight that was screened live on DAZN in over 200 countries.
Saunders, the WBO champion at 168lbs, will be in the opposite corner to Alvarez on May 8th in a huge unification fight and there’s no doubt that he will have been impressed with how easy Canelo dealt with Yildrim’s threat.
A match between Alvarez and Saunders has long been planned dating back to the days when both fighters featured high on the rankings list at 160lbs. Now officially confirmed in the immediate aftermath of Canelo’s latest win, Chris Mannix and Sergio Mora were quick to discuss Saunders’ chances of causing what would be one of the biggest shocks of 2021 on the latest edition of DAZN's "Jabs".
“Saunders has the ingredients to do it,” stated Mora when asked by Mannix if Saunders can win. "He’s a southpaw. He is a boxer just like Erislandy Lara was, just like Austin Trout was.
"Floyd Mayweather wasn’t a southpaw, but he has the skills of a southpaw fighting behind a jab and not letting you plant your feet. Saunders has all that and he has the swag of a superstar like Canelo.”
Assessing some of Canelo’s most difficult nights as a professional, both Mannix and Mora were quick to identify opponents like Lara, Trout, Mayweather and Gennady Golovkin.
Despite experiencing problems against all the aforementioned names, with the exception of Mayweather, Canelo always found a way to get the job done. Mora still believes that it is skill, and not power, that provides the best method of ending Canelo’s reign as the sport’s best fighter.
“Power is not what intimidates power punchers,” insisted Mora. “It’s slick fighters, defensive fighters. We’ve already seen Canelo fight a light-heavyweight in [Sergey] Kovalev, they call him ‘Krusher’, and we saw what happened. Golovkin, one of the most powerful punchers of the last 20 years, we saw what happened there.
“Power is not going to intimidate Canelo. It’s speed, it’s angles, it’s having to follow him and make him use the ring. These are the things that actually frustrate Canelo and that’s what Billy Joe Saunders has.”
Watch here as Chris Mannix and Sergio Mora break down Canelo v Yildrim and look ahead to the Mexican’s next test against Billy Joe Saunders on May 8th.