ARLINGTON, Texas – Eddy Reynoso promised that a bigger ring won’t help Billy Joe Saunders on Saturday night.
Canelo Alvarez’s trainer predicted that the determined Mexican champion will knock out Saunders in their 12-round super middleweight title unification fight at AT&T Stadium. Saunders threatened to pull out of their fight early this week unless they fought in a ring bigger than the 20-foot-by-20-foot squared circle Reynoso expected them to use.
Alvarez agreed to use a 22-by-22 ring, which could benefit Saunders because the smart southpaw relies heavily on movement and will now have more space to operate. The ring change annoyed Reynoso, but ultimately, he doesn’t think it’ll prevent Alvarez from stopping the unbeaten Brit inside the distance.
“We’re gonna come and get him, and this fight is gonna end by knockout,” Reynoso told a small group of reporters after a press conference Thursday at Live! by Loews, a hotel near AT&T Stadium. “We’re going for the knockout.”
The 31-year-old Saunders figures to be effective early in their bout, but Reynoso assured fans that they will see an aggressive Alvarez at the start of their fight.
The astute trainer doesn’t think Saunders can keep the heavier-handed Alvarez off of him. Reynoso suspects Saunders won’t be able to withstand Alvarez’s power, either.
“The first round we’re gonna come out and put a lot of pressure [on Saunders],” Reynoso said. “So, we’re gonna be looking for the knockout [from] the first round of the fight.”
Reynoso acknowledged, though, that Saunders will be more difficult to beat than Callum Smith and obviously Avni Yildirim.
Alvarez dominated Smith, another then-unbeaten Brit, and easily won a 12-round unanimous decision against him December 19 at Alamodome in San Antonio. Smith (27-1, 19 KOs) was expected to test Alvarez, but the four-division champion completely out-boxed him and won 119-109, 119-109 and 117-111 on the scorecards.
Alvarez dismantled Turkey’s Yildirim (21-3, 12 KOs) only 10 weeks after he went 12 rounds with Smith. He stopped the overmatched mandatory challenger for Alvarez’s WBC championship after three rounds February 27 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Saunders is intelligent, technically sound and left-handed, thus more complicated than Smith or Yildirim.
“It’s gonna be more of a difficult fight, troubling because of the way he runs and moves in the ring,” Reynoso said. “He doesn’t wanna fight, he moves around. And it’s gonna be a little bit more difficult, but it’s gonna be good.”
The 30-year-old Alvarez (55-1-2, 37 KOs), of Guadalajara, Mexico, is a 7-1 favorite to defeat Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs), of Hatfield, England. They’ll meet in the main event of a card DAZN is scheduled to stream starting at 8 p.m. EDT and 1 a.m. BST.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
