Demetrius Andrade wants to face Billy Joe Saunders so badly that he is prepared to do the unthinkable: to forgo his usual high-figure purse demand for a title fight.

“This is what I’m willing to do,” Demetrius said on a recent episode of the SI Boxing Podcast with Chris Mannix. “I’m willing to take less money – the same amount of money to fight [mandatory] Liam Williams – I would take that money to fight Billy Joe Saunders, just to show him, ‘This is what I want, this is what I deserve, this is what is going to take.’ Everybody – DAZN, Matchroom, Me, WBO – we’re going to take it to another level now. That’s what I’m trying to do. Win, lose, or draw.”

Andrade, the WBO middleweight titleholder, was originally scheduled to face Saunders, the current WBO super-middleweight titleholder, back in 2018, but the fight was nixed after Saunders tested positive for a banned substance ahead of that bout.

Two years later, Andrade (29-0, 18 KOs) is still pushing for that fight, perhaps, in part, because he has been unable to land meaningful bouts with the other elite fighters in and around his weight class, such as Gennadiy Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, and Jermall Charlo. His last three wins have come against forgettable opposition in Luke Keeler, Maciej Sulecki, and Artur Akavov. Although he has a mandatory defense to resolve in the Welshman Liam Williams, Andrade says that he would rather dock his own pay than have to go through the motions of what he feels would be another uncompetitive affair.

If nothing else, this is a marked turnaround in Andrade’s attitude, given that at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic from this past spring, he was dead set against the idea of having his purse diminished to any extent and suggested that the top earners in the sport contribute a portion of their purse to fighters such as himself.

“I’m willing to put myself at risk because a lot of fighters want to fight the easy guy that’s not that  big of a name and make that money,” Andrade insisted. “I’m willing to make that same kind of money [for a mandatory] against Billy Joe and move onto bigger and better in the future.” 

Of course, it takes two to tango, and so far, Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) has made it clear that his priority is to earn a shot against Alvarez, who picked up two 168-pound titles a few weekends ago by decisioning Saunders’ countryman Callum Smith in lopsided fashion.

“I made that clear to Eddie Hearn,” Andrade said. “I don’t know what’s going on in the Billy Joe side but we should all get on the phone and make it happen. At the end of the day it’s big for boxing. We need this. Everybody needs this. We can’t say we [all] want the Canelo platform, ‘I want that, I want to feel that.’ Billy Joe, that’s a big fight, that’s two elite guys, undefeated, going at it. May the best man win.”