Billy Joe Saunders speaks out for the first time after the Canelo fight
BJS talked through his last fight, roasted his rival Chris Eubank Jr, and revealed whether he plans to fight again
Billy Joe Saunders spoke to Kugan Cassius from iFL TV about his last fight with Canelo for the first time since it happened in May this year.
Speaking from his home, Billy Joe Saunders updated fans on what he's been up to since his last appearance in a ring: "Having a bit of time with my boys, just living life, to be honest. I haven't been in the gym since I boxed. My balance is animals, my kids, just enjoying life. I think every fighter needs a break. It's good to stay fit and active, but realistically it's just a fight isn't it."
On the subject of his last fight with pound-for-pound superstar Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, he reflected back on his feelings before the bout, "Not one minute did I get nervous walking in, I was enjoying the moment, it was a very, very good experience, it was good, I enjoyed it.
"I never make excuses, the complete bottom line of it is this: I got beaten by the better man on the night. The main thing is winning and Canelo won. If I get beat by the better man, I can always live with that, and on the night he was the better man.
"When I was in there, I felt like after six [rounds] I could feel his pace dropping and I was just growing in confidence. He let me get away with minor stuff at the beginning and he capitalised on it. I kept going one way, one way, one way, and in the end I sort of got a little bit careless, I didn't find no freaky power, I didn't find anything in there that really shocked me, you know, but he ended it with a good shot. As soon as I got hit with that shot I thought my legs were gone but I was bouncing around for about 10 seconds, and I realised my legs weren't gone then bang I could feel it all caved in a bit, all I can remember is ducking and hearing whistling air going past, like I say it was a good shot he finished with.
"Great fighters find great ways to win, and he is a great fighter, so I take my hat off to him.
"I don't think I switched off and made the deliberate mistake, he worked his gameplan to force me into that mistake. I remember Ben [Davison] was saying dip to the left as well, but I was dipping to the right, he was saying switch, give it both looks, but in hindsight I was doing that but I was trying to avoid the backhand uppercut or the straight down the pipe.
"I started slow, slower than I ever started because I knew they wanted me to start fast, so I started real slow but I knew I had to have a grand slam finish, so I didn't really want to push the pace too early, because pushing the pace too early it would have been a tough last four rounds, so I knew I had to save gas, but at times I knew I had to fight fire with fire.
"I was on the backfoot completely and I couldn't see out of this eye at all, could not see a thing, and I was moving around and as soon as that bell went I could hear Ben saying it's over before I even sat down. It was rightly stopped. When I got to the hospital, it was at back of the retina, there was a bit of my cheek split off then, what could have sat at the back and for it to pierce it I would have been blind in one eye completely. That's the reason why you have good cornermen in there.
"For me, I was going to go out for one more round, me and a cornerman agreed on that, but Ben did say to me in the corner it's over, it's done, you can get a rematch off this, so he talked me round. Mark does his thing and Ben does his thing, the main thing I will say is that when I was in hospital Ben was straight up there.
"One more check-up at the end of November but it's all healing up good, and I can see so that's the main thing."
Saunders addressed the controversial comments he made about heavyweight Dubois when he chose to take a knee against rival Joe Joyce, "Daniel Dubois is a young, hungry, good fighter, I like Daniel a lot. Daniel made his own decision, I didn't make my own decision. With Daniel, I don't know the extent of the trouble or how bad the eye was, I didn't make a decision myself, my cornermen made my decision, so Daniel's got his own reasons. I know what it's like to have that pain, it's a bad injury, like I say he'll come again and I believe he'll be world champion.
"I could have easily went down on one knee, he'll have his reasons and I've got mine."
On the questions surrounding his possible retirement, he stated, "I'm not really worried if I box again. If I don't ever box again it don't really bother me. I've got good people around me, I've invested my money well. I have to go away to training six to seven months at a tiem and when you lose the will to do that, but there is certain fights that could get you up to do that, like the Canelo rematch and another couple of big fights., but they've got to be the right fights for me to be boxing in, I'm not interested in being three-time world champion anymore, it'd have to be for big money.
"I'm contracted obviously to DAZN, if I was going to have a fight I would love it to be on Sky. I'm not worried about worldwide publicity, for the normal UK fans Sky is the platform, I feel.
"He mentions my name to keep his name relevant, because if he's really worried about fighting the big names, he could have boxed Golovkin back in 2016, he could have numerous other big fights, the only two big fights he's took is myself and George Groves and got beat in both! He hasn't beaten anybody that's even on the verge of a world title. I beat him the first time, I'm the A-Side. If someone beat me and I could get a rematch, I'd take less money I'd do what I needed to get the fight on."
On the subject of a possible retirement from the ring, Saunders confirmed that he would remain in boxing still in another capacity, "I know there's always something to fall back on, with a job as a management role, I've got three fighters now, there's always a spot for me at MTK. Without a shadow of a doubt, I wouldn't be where I am without them, so I can only thank them, they are the best management company I've seen."
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