ARLINGTON, Texas – Canelo Alvarez took notice of Billy Joe Saunders’ most impressive performance.
The four-division champion commended Saunders for the boxing clinic the British southpaw produced against David Lemieux in December 2017. Saunders traveled to Lemieux’s proverbial backyard that night and completely out-classed the hard-hitting middleweight contender throughout their 12-round fight for Saunders’ WBO middleweight title at Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, Canada.
An extremely confident Saunders picked apart Lemieux with his jab and straight left hand, continually turned him and made Lemieux miss much more often than not. Saunders memorably mocked one of Lemieux’s misses in the fifth round, when he turned away from Lemieux and pretended to look into the crowd for Lemieux’s errant right hand.
Saunders won all 12 rounds on the card of Quebec-based judge Benoit Roussel, who scored their fight 120-108. British judge Phil Edwards scored Saunders a 118-110 winner and Puerto Rican judge Gerardo Martinez had it 117-111 for the two-division champion.
The WBO super middleweight champion’s victory over Lemieux reminds Alvarez of what Saunders can do if he doesn’t execute his game plan in their 12-round, 168-pound title unification fight Saturday night at AT&T Stadium.
“He fought a good fight, a smart fight,” Alvarez told BoxingScene.com before a press conference Thursday at Live! by Loews, a hotel near AT&T Stadium. “He brought Lemieux into his style and did whatever he wanted. But I’m not David Lemieux.”
The 30-year-old Alvarez is arguably boxing’s best fighter, pound-for-pound, obviously much more diverse and skillful than Lemieux, a former IBF middleweight champ. Still, the last time he fought an intelligent, technically sound southpaw, Alvarez won a controversial split decision against Cuba’s Erislandy Lara in July 2014 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Alvarez insists that he is nothing like the 23-year-old contender that faced Lara nearly seven years ago. He knows, however, that he’ll encounter the best version of the inconsistent Saunders, someone similar to the near-perfect fighter that befuddled Lemieux.
“I expect him to fight that way [Saturday night],” Alvarez said. “It’s always hard to fight someone with that kind of style. But at this level, you have to adapt to whatever comes to you, in any situation. I trained especially for him and I’m prepared to win.”
Alvarez (55-1-2, 37 KOs), of Guadalajara, Mexico, is listed by most Internet sports books as a 7-1 favorite to defeat Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs), of Manchester, England. They’ll fight for Alvarez’s WBA and WBC super middleweight titles and Saunders’ WBO belt in the main event of a card DAZN will start streaming at 8 p.m. ET from the home stadium of the Dallas Cowboys.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
