BEVERLY HILLS, May 09, (THEWILL) – Saul “Canelo” Alvarez bested Billy Joe Saunders by a technical knockout that landed Saunders in the hospital for what could be a broken orbital bone. The fight between the boxers had to be stopped before the ninth round because Saunders had been so bruised up, he could not open his right eye .
Reports immediately after confirmed that Saunders had to be quickly taken a local hospital in Arlington, Texas, to have his eye checked, because as boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, the English Boxing Promoter and Group Managing Director of Matchroom Sport, said after the bout, Saunders “busted his eye socket.”
The Mexican champion, cheered by a record-breaking crowd, pelted Saunders in their super middleweight unification fight with enough firepower to inflict the damage that enhanced his legacy on the division. The blow that won the fight for Canelo, and which was responsible for Saunders eye trouble, was a Canelo uppercut to the right eye late in the eighth round.
It shut off the eye and left Saunders on his corner stool ahead of the ninth round before the fight was called off as Saunders’ trainer, Mark Tibbs, refused to let his fighter go back out for the ninth when he admitted between rounds that he couldn’t see, making Alvarez the holder of three of the four belts in the 168-pound division.
Tibbs remarked post-match why he felt throwing in the towel was the responsible action to take: “He’s a young man,” Tibbs said of the 31-year-old Saunders. “He’s got a family. He’s got children. I’ve known him a very, very long time. He lives to fight another day.”
On the biggest night of his professional fighting career, Saunders was fighting for the unified super middleweight titles against arguably the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world and he may have been defeated but he tested Canelo, offering a strong challenge through the first seven rounds and giving the packed crowd their money’s worth. It was however not enough and got him his professional career defeat after 30 fights.
A record-breaking crowd of 73,126 packed into the Dallas Cowboys venue to witness the fight in-person. It was over the previous record of the largest indoor attendance for a boxing event in the United States of 63,350 by nearly 10,000. That previous mark was set at the 1978 rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks.
Aside being the record-setting crowd for an indoor event, the crowd size for Saturday’s bout was simply the biggest gathering in the United States since COVID-19 became a pandemic and is a positive indicator for the gradual return to normalcy.
Canelo took Saunders’ WBO super middleweight title as he continued on his unbeaten run. It is now 15 successful fights for him since losing by majority decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2013.
The defeated Saunders left the ring without conducting any post-fight interviews but got into an ambulance to go get his eye assessed at the local hospital in Arlington.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
