Former WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders has undergone surgery in Dallas after suffering multiple fractures to the orbital area of his right eye. WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez caved in Saunders’ eye socket with a massive right uppercut in round eight of their bout Saturday night before a record audience of 73,126 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It was the largest attendance at any sports event in the US since Covid-19.
Kell Brook suffered a similar injury against Gennady Golovkin and was out nine months, then he suffered the same injury to the other eye socket against Errol Spence and was out ten months.
Its amazing Canelo is able to walk down, bully, and inflict serious damage to guys that were way bigger at one point. Usually the guy coming up in weight needs to be a better boxer. This shows the Mexican meat does a body good 🙂
Haha, yeah, i could do with some of that
Canelo does seem to have bricks for hands.
That single punch is probably the most destructive I’ve seen.
It also doesn’t help when Canelo was coming with that uppercut BJS lowers his face down right into the punch, meets it half way lol. BJS has bad instincts and defense to counter someone like Canelo. Nearly the whole fight at random times BJS a taller fighter lowers his body and face down towards Canelos hips making it easy for a knockout with an uppercut. It was bound to happen as the fight draws on.
Yeah that’s his style, dipping down to avoid punches, didn’t work out so well, definitely increased the impact of the uppercut, you can actually hear the shot land, was a belter of a punch.
I kept saying the exact same thing. Except I didn’t think it would be an uppercut, but a wide/looping right hook that a right-handed fighter normally wouldn’t normally throw. But Saunders was doing the same thing over and over, leaving himself vulnerable and not positioned to counter if Canelo missed with it.
Hardly. Saunders didn’t even go down.
Hardly you say?-Well it seems when he went down it was curtains!-Saunders never threatened the Champion -he ran most of the night and and was too busy making retard faces like a typical London hooligan instead of fighting and focussing on the job at hand-Canelo is a great champion and a pro-
8th round and still has the power to break faces – hmmmm.
Akolie`s uppercut was way better and more destructive, it left his guy out on the floor, from a similar type of shot.
But he didn’t hurt GGG once with the same punches while being full of clembuterol on fight night !! But GGG has bones like bricks ! Canelo should’ve had another loss on his record and that’s what protected fighters like him are able to escape with.. Don’t get me wrong i was a Canelo fan way before everyone jumped on the bandwagon but the way Golden Boy promotion and Canelo were getting no significant fights after another have made me very disappointed about him. Don’t forget Canelo relinquished his MW WBC Belt rather than fight GGG when he was in his prime..
To the fan’s of Canelo : Give me a name of one fighter appart of Money May Canelo fought at the right time and who was really a threat to him ???
Read a book.
Agreed but he has been on the juice at some point, don’t get me wrong it does not take away from what he has accomplished
Yee don’t go from light weight to supermodels he’s a steroid head
The issue is that the changes and improvements from juicing are permanent. Even a year’s worth which is at the very least the time period he juiced for
Great observation. I remember that for a couple of years before deciding to fight at middleweight, the excuse was that he was too small, not mature enough yet, not fair to fight bigger guys etc…
But once those steaks kicked in, wow, even light heavyweights became easy targets. Does make you wonder.
And of course, you got plenty of heat from the canelo-s*xuals.
Figured as much. Not that it was so precise. You’re usually going for the jaw or the temple. He managed to clip his eye and did serious damage to it. What people don’t understand is the eye is fluid. If the tissue around the eye swells shut the eye is being pressured to the extent it is really painful and you cannot see anything with it.
Can’t fault Saunders here. It’s no different than a super fight that ends in the 1st on a cut. I’d like to see a rematch but it is what it is. Boxing does this sometimes.
Omg a rematch? So he can get his other eye socket broken? Lol
Damage caused by a punch is part of the game and not some arbitrary or lucky occurrence. There’s no need for a rematch here. Only one fighter was punching to win.
Saunders reduced Canelo to a one punch away from a win Wilder kind of fighter. GGG beat Canelo twice.
Canelo reduced Saunders to a helpless heap-and was ahead on every card
That doesnt mean much in boxing these days. Its hard to get a decision over Canelo even if you win. Saunders was doing well. I thought it was pretty even up until that punch.
Man, now I feel really bad about boo’ing the kid for quitting on his stool. Out for close to a year or possibly permanently. Man, regardless of who you are, that is one tough pill to swallow. I wish him a speedy recovery.
Well said, Tony. I agree. I was busting on BJS too.
That was a smashing punch by Canelo. Prayers for BJS for a quick and safe recovery…
Very nasty, poor chap. You can see in the photos that he has no cheekbone sticking out on his right side. Totally caved in.
It’s ashame that happened. He made alot of money and should hang his head high. He performed excellently. Nothing more to prove for bjs. Walk away from the sport and enjoy your life as to not re injure the fracture.
I guarantee you BJS had a CT scan of his head with and without dye to rule out any internal bleeding. This procedure would have been a must due to the extensive injury to his orbital socket and/or zygomatic arch. A fracture is considered a break in the integrity of the bone structure. That all being said, BJS, in my opinion, will be out of boxing minimal a year for complete healing.
BJS should retire now why risk like kell brook getting the other one done, looking at the replay he is lucky that he did not go down serious force by CS the guy is just plain dangerous , scary to me and I have done lots of fighting.
it was disgusting all those who said he quit shame on you
Peter, I agree, BJS may fair better in life retiring now and enjoying life. No harm in doing so.
i think the only way bjs gets another belt is a move back down to mw, but he might done, all he ever talked about was a fight with ggg and canelo, can’t see ggg fighting a mobile boxer like bjs.
Maybe in defeat BJS will learn how to be humble
I like him as a fighter, he’s done some dumb stuff in the past…Haven’t we all.
All the best BJS, recover well.
I love boxing fans sitting on the couch, drinking beer, and calling out fighters for being pussies when they quit. Quitting was treasonous for some fighters like Arturo Gatti and Mikey Ward. Major props to those guys for not, but how did that work out for them post career? Not very well. I honestly was surprised when BJS quit, because I was sitting on my ass drinking beer and didn’t realize the extent of his injury, but I make it a rule to never fault a fighter for doing so. A fighter doesn’t quit because he got hit a little too hard for his liking; a fighter quits (and usually it’s a responsible trainer who decides) because they would be risking life altering injury or even death if they were to continue. I hope BJS recovers well and will be back soon.
at least you can admit it good on you there are some truly terrible people out there commenting about him being a quitter did you see the force of the shot he was hit with a brick essentially
Get well BJS you boxed with heart, heal and ask for rematch after Canelo unified the division
He got knocked out to the point his eye is apparently in need of surgery the type never seen in the history of mankind. No need for a rematch. He had his chance.
I was born in a small Illinois town called Freeport. There was this young man that was a frequent visitor to our home because he was a close friend of my younger brother. He fought for a world title in England and his corner didn’t stop the fight in time and now he will never be the same ever again.Ironically it was in the same weight class as BJS and Canelo. Stay strong G Man!
Yes, Gerald you are talking about! I recall that night when he fought Benn. Yes, stay strong G Man!
Coach T- Wow, thanks for sharing. There was a documentary made about that fight. I think G-Man is still living in Freeport with his sister as his full time caretaker. Yeah, that was a tragic night in boxing. It’s a trainers job to protect their fighter. Marc Breland did an outstanding job of doing that with Deontay Wilder, but instead of thanking him, Wilder blamed him for the loss and fired him. I doubt Wilder will the same fighter after that beatdown, but it would have been much worse had it continued.
Kris: I hope the rest Wilder has had has made him recover fully physically and importantly mentally. Wilder, like him or not, as bad technically a boxer he was, was part of what made the hw division more interesting with that right hand he has.
No doubt- Wilder added much spice to the division. He’s a divisive figure, but in boxing, divisive is 1000x better than boring.
Yeah; but no one here is giving Wilder credit for wanting to continue. But everyone is looking to give a big mouth guy, who is a horrible human as well, props for sitting on his stool. He even told a reporter his breath smells like fish.
What’s worse- telling someone they have fish breath, or telling an opponent they wanna catch a body?
Most trainers ,and indeed most fighters themselves, would have stopped that fight after the first round beating that Benn took. i thought he would be killed if he came out for the second, and he was up against one of the top 5 hardest punching middles, in the history of the game. Benn showed he was a true warrior, not a guy that call himself a warrior, slag off a guy who gave up (dubois) with the same type of injury, and then quit on his stool. I do sympathize with G man, but you should know that Benn suffered in that fight as well, he was never the same after that fight, He slurs today, and i think that fight played a great part in that. Benn at least proved he was an ultimate warrior, BJS had a lot to say, but was found wanting.
I have always said its better for a boxer to quit when he or she has a real injury. I do not look down on BJS for knowing it was time to stop. I look down on him for the bull shit speech he made about dying in the ring before he would stop. Its one thing to say it, but he went into detail explaining how happy he would be to die in order to win over and over. Its because of that I look down on him. He got the injury at the end of the round and who knows what would have happened if he went another 30 seconds. Its just the bull shit that came out of his mouth just to stop seconds after the injury. We have all seen boxers who have had serious injuries plea to continue fighting, but he just made himself look foolish with that speech. Some of us long time fans of boxing have seen fighters come back and win a fight, but they have to be winning to win and not just spout off speeches. Diego Corrales vs Jose Luis Castillo comes to mind when you think of a guy getting beat, cant see and nobody would have complained if the ref or the corner tossed in the towel, but Corrales was willing to continue on no matter how badly he was beaten. We can also mention Arthur Abraham who had he Jaw broken into pieces. Arthur fought a power puncher for eight more rounds with a broken jaw and still won the fight. It took over 20 screws and a few plates to fix his jaw after that fight. Basically I just find BJS to be a joke because he went into such detail about his willingness to dye in the ring to beat Canelo and didnt even fight for a min after the injury. There are some great memories in boxing and they are not made by the fighters who talk about doing them. They are made by the fighters who actually do them.
Billy joe deserves everything he got.. I wished it woukd of caved his head in.. since his been in boxing his been absolutely disrespectful.. too other fighters.. karma bit his little birth marked face
Derrick- Maybe he was willing to “dye” the ring apron with his own blood, but not willing to die, as in ceasing to live. Should he have risked serious and permanent injury to please the likes of guys like you? I was just as surprised as anyone after he quit, but I’m glad he did. Boxing is a sport, albeit a very violent one, but not a death match.
Get well, BJS.
When do we start having a serious discussion about drug use here. I’m not a hater and all that nonsense. I’m a realist. Nobody just walks through another man like Canelo is doing these days without him being juiced up. It’s BS. He’s not fighting in the local town hall. He’s fighting experienced guys at the top of their game that have serious ko power. It doesn’t pass the sniff test. And hug he kills another man, he’ll go to jail for a long time. It’s hardly a surprise of course. Where else but boxing do you see people look the other way than other sports. We’re not seeing an amazing boxer that is not being tagged. We’re seeing a beast that is getting tagged but is walking through it. That doesn’t happen without artificial assistance.
The eye socket isn’t built like the rest of the skull. Like your nose the eye socket is very susceptible to being broken IF a punch lands exactly on it. What I said prior is that Canelo landed a lucky punch. That’s it. You’re not aiming for the eye. It just happened that way and resulted in the fight being stopped.
Odds of it happening again in a rematch are zero.
Yeah, It did look pretty serious and he ducked into that punch so it did extra damage. That stumble said it all to me on the night of the fight.. the type of injury that any fighter should stop fighting and go straight to the hospital. Those are career ending injuries. Hope he heals up.. it was a cool fight. Good job BJS he showed up to win.
BJS was bound to loose by knockout at some point. He has bad instinct’s and defense to counter a skilled fighter like Canelo. Constantly lowering his face throughout the fight ducking down towards Canelo’s hips. Despite a lot of biased English announcers BJS wasn’t even close in the fight. I didn’t see him win more than 2 or 3 of the 8 rounds he fought in. He wasn’t doing anything whatsoever in that fight but running and dodging and a lot of light pitty patty punches that will not win on the judges scorecards. No wonder he wanted a larger ring so he can run away from the fight instead getting caught up in the ropes with Canelo. I don’t think Caleb Plant will fight Canelo. He doesn’t have the power or skill set to beat Canelo.
Hopefully he comes to the realisation that he should conduct himself better now that he has been exposed at the top level. He was lucky to get that payday. He was never an entertaining fighter. That’s probably the end of his antics
You know.. that fight definitely had some beautiful body shots. Canelo set up the uppercut with those body shots from round one. Even tried the uppercut early in that fight.. made him try to avoid getting hit to the body then boom. Uppercut!.. it was nice.. paced himself nicely.. and that walk down doing that parrying motion with his gloves I always thought that move looked cool.. Mayweather used to do that.. move forward in a way that the opponents are handcuffed because every shot will get countered.
Maybe they should have checked Canelo’s gloves. Probably nothing there but the surface of his gloves did look to be firmer and possibly harder. With his money a little oversight wouldn’t be out of the question. If I had a fighter the gloves, taping etc. would be monitored as close as possible. Before you get hostile I’m just saying this is a long shot possibility. I think Alvarez would have won regardless.
lets hope he recovers fully and as quickly as possible
BJS didn’t hit hard enough to deter Canelo from walking him down. His type of injury usually means the beginning of the end, wish him a speedy recovery. Canelo is susceptible to a boxer puncher that has some zip on his punches. Canelo’s major fault to me is his lack of footwork. He can be out boxed as he was against Floyd, and had some difficulties against Lara, Trout, and GGG. I think Charlo, Bivol, and Benavidez would be good tests for him, Plant is a lesser version of BJS, and quite frankly overated, Beterbiev may be too big for Canelo, who is not a light heavyweight. As far as the juiceing goes, probably 30-40% of top flight athletes use banned substances, not that that makes it right, its how they compete against others that are using and make millions of dollars due to having a physical advantage. I know guys that played minor league baseball and said if they juiced like some of the guys you see in the majors, they would have been there too and making millions.
the biggest event since covid 19?????? ,,, it was the biggest boxing event ever in the usa.
PJ spot on comment.
Canelo was actually countering to the body of southpaw BJS after Saunders threw the lead hook but saunders ducked as if to Slip the counter left which canelo threw all night. Instead canelo went to the body and BJS ran straight into it head first. Good pick up! It was a shot that just happened to land on the eye socket. You could even tell by canelo’s Split paused reaction as if he was A little surprised
I remember that night well, Coach T. It was February 25, 1995 and it was on Showtime. That headbutt G-Man sustained from Benn in the ninth round was God-awful and the way G-Man looked in the tenth and final round when he went down the last two times was very disturbing. Ferdie Pacheco showed himself to be an absolute jackass that night by saying G-Man quit despite G-Man’s clearly being in distress. That was a savage fight where the referee appeared to be incompetent and lost control of the match. G-Man was a monster in the ring who was one of the few to go punch for punch with a bomber like Julian Jackson in winning the middleweight title. I still don’t know how Benn got up from being knocked out of the ring after G-Man’s furious first round assault.
This what Saunders said about Daniel Dubois decision not to continue in the ring in order to save his eyesight, insisting that had it been him then the fight would have continued, come what may. Saunders told DAZN’s AK & Barak show: ‘If my two eye sockets were broken, my jaw was broken, my teeth were out, my nose was smashed, my brain was beaten, I was not stopping until I was knocked out or worse. I don’t agree with a man taking the knee and letting the ref count him out.
Well, he’s certainly a dick for saying all that, now he has to eat those words. I still don’t blame the man for quitting, but he owes Dubois an apology
PLANT IN 2!
Roy: Yes Plant after 2 rounds will jump out the ring and run away : /
Tough break for BJS getting an injury like that. That was the most ambitious performance against Canelo since GGG. Just didn’t have the punch power to really deter him. Can’t see him continuing now though. He barely seemed motivated half the time anyway.
Canelo or the art of fighting second tier fighters or past their prime champions..
Give me the name of one great champ Canelo fought in his prime ? Appart of Mayweather whom he took the beating of his life ! When he relinquished his WBC MW belt instead of fighting GGG 7 or 8 years ago i completly lost it about him, and that’s sad because he’s a great great fighter but GBP, Canelo and his entourage fucked up his carreer and the fact he could have been in my opinion the greatest Mexican fighter ever…