Frank Warren, the promoter for former WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, says numerous names have rejected the possibility of facing his boxer - which forced Saunders to make a move to the super middleweight ranks.
Saunders will be making his official debut at 168-pounds, when he fights for the vacant WBO title against Shefat Isufi on May 18th at the Stevenage football ground.
“It’s for the world title, it’s for the full title,” Warren told Boxing News. “He’ll have options. He can fight at super-middleweight or middleweight, that’s going to be his choice depending on who’s around."
Warren explained that neither Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin were willing to face Saunders at middleweight.
Saunders believed that his dominating win over David Lemieux had scared off many of the top level fighters at 160.
He was scheduled to face Demetrius Andrade last year in a mandatory defense, but the contest fell out when Saunders tested positive for a substance that is banned in the United States, but considered legal for use in out of completion circumstances.
Canelo and Golovkin are both contractually tired to DAZN, while Warren has aligned his stable with Top Rank and ESPN.
“The problem I have is there’s two fighters in particular, Golovkin, they sent us contracts and we signed and sent them back on two occasions. I don’t think they want it and I know that Canelo don’t want it. And that’s the problem,” Warren said.
“So we’ve got to look to make another meaningful fight for him, which we will do. In the meantime the Billy Joe Saunders that fought [David] Lemieux has been out the ring for quite a while now. He’s moving up a weight. He’s still a young man. The Billy Joe that fought Lemieux has got the beating of those two fellas [Canelo and Danny Jacobs] I saw at the weekend.”