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Billy Joe Saunders has rattled the boxing world and we love it

Saunders

“Obviously, as you can see, I tagged Canelo and [promoter] Eddie Hearn in my last video. The ring is not a problem. Thumbs are up."

Billy Joe Saunders has already delivered a boxing masterclass without even entering the ring.
The undefeated two-division world champion sent the boxing fraternity into anger with his threat to pull out of a lucrative fight against Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.

Saunders' insisted he would pull out of the fight if the 'unacceptable ring size' could not get resolved before fight night.

"There's a little bit of a hiccup today that everyone's trying to resolve," Saunders told talkSPORT.
"I've left that to my management team MTK who's over here sorting it, it's quite a big hiccup to be honest.
"The problem is I've come over here and they're trying to chuck me in a phonebox of a boxing ring.

"For me, that's just unacceptable. I want a 24ft ring and they're saying it's not gonna happen."

"I've left it to my team and I'm sure they'll resolve it, otherwise there won't be any fight," Saunders continued.

"You can't just fly me in here, show me the ring that we're using. I've been training all of my camp in a 24ft ring, it's a unification fight, not a British title.
"It's like someone training on a 200m running track and someone training on a 400m running track, there's a big difference.

"We all know his style of fighting, anybody who knows boxing knows how this fight - how I've got in my head of it playing out.

"And he's got his own style of fighting and his game plan, and I know his game plan.
"His game plan's not waiting around, his game plan is coming to me and I want somewhere where I can move and get my boxing off."
It has caused quite the stir.

"If Saunders pulls out over the size of a legal ring he will be the laughingstock of boxing and probably get sued to the end of the earth and ruin his career," respected journalist Dan Rafael said.

"But go ahead, make all the empty threats you want. At least it gives us something to write and talk about," he added.

To make his point, Saunders decided not to turn up at this week's press conference.

Walking through the hotel lobby, Canelo shouted "f***ing p***y" in retaliation to Saunders' team who were present at the time.

John Ryder - who could have fought Canelo if the judges had given him a fair whip against Callum Smith - was put on standby, according to Boxing News.
But any jeopardy was ended by a social media video post by Saunders.
"Obviously, as you can see, I tagged Canelo and [promoter] Eddie Hearn in my last video. The ring is not a problem. Thumbs are up."

The truth of the matter is, Saunders was never going to boycott the biggest fight of his career and he has simply used every trick in the book to try and unsettle boxing's biggest star.

His good friend and heavyweight champion Tyson Fury got his way in 2015 when he did a similar thing on the day of the fight against Wladimir Klitschko.

The underlay of the ring was torn up and the canvas re-laid after Team Fury complained about the amount of foam underneath.
The Gypsy King went on to win the fight via unanimous decision and in doing so, he changed the landscape of heavyweight boxing.
Canelo negotiated the release of his brother who had been kidnapped just 24 hours before his fight against Rocky Fielding in 2019 so it's highly unlikely that he will be rattled by the behaviour of Saunders this week.
It does, however, stick two fingers up to the A-side fighters who expect to have every advantage possible going into a fight.
Canelo and Saunders will collide in a super middleweight unification blockbuster for the WBA, WBC, WBO and Ring Magazine titles on May 8, live and exclusive to DAZN.

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