Billy Joe Saunders Threatens To Pull Out Of Canelo Alvarez Fight Due To The Size Of The Ring
Billy Joe Saunders is threatening to pull out of his fight against Canelo Alvarez on Saturday due to the ring size.
Saunders and Alvarez are set to fight at AT&T Stadium in Texas on Saturday night in a highly-anticipated fight. Although they are in a football stadium, the ring is apparently 18-feet ring but they had agreed to 24-feet, which is why Saunders is mad. He also says 22-feet is about the smallest he will go.
“There’s a little bit of a hiccup today that everyone’s trying to resolve,” Saunders said to 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 phone box of a boxing ring. It [the stadium] is hundreds and hundreds of feet long and they wanna stick an 16/18ft ring in the middle of it.
“For me, that’s just unacceptable. I want a 24ft ring and they’re saying it’s not gonna happen,” Saunders continued. “I’ve left it to my team and I’m sure they’ll resolve it, otherwise there won’t be any fight… 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,” Saunders concluded. “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.”
This is no doubt a massive problem and could be a big hurdle in making the fight happen on Saturday. Billy Joe Saunders’s friend in Tyson Fury also believes it is a problem.
“You know I just got off the phone with Billy Joe,” Fury said. “It seems like they’re trying a lot of tricks in Texas with him. I just wanna say you can try all the tricks in the motherf***ing world, you ain’t gonna beat Billy Joe. Play fair guys, play f***ing fair now.”
What do you make of Billy Joe Saunders threatening to pull out due to the ring size?