JEFF POWELL: Will Billy Joe Saunders ever get over this humiliation?

JEFF POWELL: Will Billy Joe Saunders ever get over this brutal humiliation? Submission is anathema to the traveller fighting culture… and surrender to Canelo Alvarez in Texas will cut him to the very core

• The fight of Billy Joe Saunders’ life had been ruthlessly ended by Canelo Alvarez
• The fierce uppercut in Texas was the shattering of a dream and a savage beating 
• Saunders went out of the bout on his stool and it is hard to see if he will recover 
• Such a submission is anathema to the fighting culture of the traveller community
• Sportsmail‘s Jeff Powell was only UK sportswriter ringside at the AT&T Stadium 

This was not just the infliction of a first defeat. The shattering of a dream. The loss of a world title. The savage beating eventually meted out by the best boxer on earth. 

This humiliation in front of the biggest indoor boxing crowd ever assembled in America as well as a global television audience of millions will cut Billy Joe Saunders to the core of his being. This denouement is infinitely more painful even than the fracturing of his right eye socket by Saul Canelo Alvarez.

Saunders went out of the biggest fight he will ever have in his life on his stool. Not his shield. I shudder to contemplate whether he will be able to come to terms with this.

Billy Joe Saunders (left) went out of the biggest fight he will ever have in his life on his stool

However blinded his eye and agonising the internally bleeding wound with which his corner forbade him to go back out for the ninth round in the cacophonous AT&T Stadium, such a submission is anathema to the fighting culture of the traveller community. 

Even if, inevitably as he did, you are going to end up in hospital.

You keep going to the end, however bitter. Never give up. Never give in. It is a harsh code. A brutal regimen to which few would commit. But it is the one by which Billy Joe and his auxiliary corner man here Tyson Fury live.

Saunders actually came to the ring accompanied by a World War 11 recording of Sir Winston Churchill famously intoning: ‘We will never surrender.’ How cruel the irony.

Saunders was defeated in the eighth round by Saul Canelo Alvarez with a fractured eye socket

Having failed to go out on his shield, it is difficult to see how Saunders comes to terms with this

To compound his misery, having been jeered into sport’s most spectacular colosseum by 73,000 Canelo fanatics, he was then mocked by them as he sat cowed with a towel over his head while the official announcement came of his retirement at the end of eighth round.

How chastening that many in boxing with this fight-til-you-die mentality were among those who castigated British heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois for taking a knee when Joe Joyce broke his right orbital bone.

Saunders knows only too well that his, shall we say, eccentricities do not make him the best loved of British boxers. But few will have wished upon him the personally excruciating fate which awaited him on a Saturday night which he had bragged would be his redeeming destiny. 

Especially since there were moments in this fight when he boxed cleverly and quickly enough to suggest he might extend Alvarez to the limit of his formidable powers.

Saunders’ submission to Alvarez is anathema to the fighting culture of the traveller community

Not that any sympathy was forthcoming from Canelo. The Mexican icon had grown irritated by all the objections about the fight organisation and the insults from Saunders which he regarded as disrespectful to himself and to the sport he loves.

Alvarez took particular pleasure in forcing the brutal stoppage he had predicted in ‘the eighth or ninth round.’ Saunders did not so much get under his skin as poke the beast. Not wise. 

The blood lust raged in Canelo as powerfully as among the legions to his legend who sang the macho Mexican songs and roared as an explosion of fireworks signalled his arrival for ‘another day at the office.’ It was almost as if he waited for his appointed moment to finish the job. 

Saunders had begun working briskly behind the southpaw jab which his fellow traveller Fury had urged him to employ rather than his familiar Artful Dodger routine. In reality it was never going to be enough but it earned him more rounds on the scorecards than Canelo would have been happy to let slip. The first included.

In Texas, Saunders did not get under the skin of Alvarez but instead unwisely poked the beast

He then gave the four-division, five time world champion more of the style problems in mid-fight which Canelo had expected in the early rounds.

The Hispanic throng, who had been partying in the surrounding streets and huge car parks under their green, red and white Mexican banners for hours before the home of the Dallas Cowboys opened its doors, were occasionally quieted. 

Until their idol worked Saunders out. Canelo had begun to taunt Billy Joe with imitations of his come-and-get-me beckonings before the eighth.

Then the onslaught was unleashed. Thundering body shots had already begun to slow his opponent. Now came the crunching right uppercuts and left hooks to the head.

After Alvarez worked Saunders out the onslaught was unleashed with thundering body shots

The most vital of those smashed into that right eye as Saunders tried in vain to swerve away from the punishment.

Perhaps he could have gone on. Maybe for one last, desperate throw of the dice. But in reality it would have achieved nothing and risked much of his health. The brutal end was nigh.

Saunders had done well enough to be closer by my reckoning at the end of the eighth – 77 points to 75 – than on the official judges’ scorecards. But it was never going to be enough.

Canelo was always going to take possession of Billy Joe’s WBO title, to supplement his WBC, WBA and Ring magazine belts as this four-weight, five-time world champion continues his relentless pursuit of ‘more history’ as the first undisputed super-middleweight ruler.

Alvarez was always going to take Saunders’ belt in his quest for super-middleweight perfection

The last part of that jigsaw will be his target in September as he takes on undefeated IBF world champion Caleb Plant.

As of now the Mariachi fiesta rages over Mother’s Day in the US and Cinco de Mayo weekend in Texas.

But whither the tale of Billy Joe. This was his ultimate moment. Not only of his career but by his own admission of his life.

Without that motivation can he summon up again the effort of will and sacrifice which brought him to Dallas in peak physical condition? 

Tyson Fury, Saunders’ auxiliary corner man, is still the Gypsy King after climbing off the floor

As for Saunders, the Romany prince has fallen and the omens aren’t good for his motivation

Not even that has been enough for him to reach the highest level in boxing.

The omens are not good.

Tyson Fury, having got off the floor while still unconscious against Deontay Wilder, is still the Gypsy King.

Saunders the Romany prince has fallen.

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