It's Canelo fight week & I'm finally returning to ringside after 14 months at home

Plus a few Quick hits and Show and tell

This is the first really big fight week of 2021 as pound-for-pound king and unified super middleweight world champion Canelo Alvarez is set to fight for the third time since December — an unusually busy schedule for a top boxing star — when he meets Billy Joe Saunders to unify their three belts and also for Alvarez’s Ring magazine title.

They are scheduled to meet on Saturday (DAZN, 8 p.m. ET) at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where a crowd of around 70,000 is expected, which would make it by far the largest gathering in North America since the coronavirus pandemic began.

I haven’t traveled anywhere — boxing or otherwise — in 14 months, since I covered heavyweight Robert Helenius’ upset knockout of Adam Kownacki at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on March 7, 2020 and returned home by Amtrak the following day. A few days later the NBA stopped its season and the rest of the sports world followed.

So, I am very excited to be flying to Dallas on Wednesday to cover Alvarez-Saunders for my friends at The Ring magazine. I have already started writing fight week stories for the website at RingTV.com and will continue to do so through fight night, so make sure you go to the website daily for the coverage.

If you have missed any stories so far, I kicked off by writing about excellent junior lightweight prospect Marc Castro (2-0, 2 KOs), a 21-year-old from Fresno, California. He was a decorated amateur and will be in his third professional fight on Saturday’s undercard and because of Canelo’s very busy schedule, Castro will be fighting on his third consecutive Canelo show. That is a big deal to Castro because Alvarez is his favorite fighter and he had a chance to spend two months training in his San Diego gym when he was still an amateur in 2019. Please read that story here: https://www.ringtv.com/621349-talented-130-pound-prospect-marc-castro-motivated-by-canelo-glory-nights-and-his-own-future/

The big news on Tuesday was that Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) threatened to pull out of the fight because he was unhappy with the size of the ring, even though it was perfectly legal under Texas rules. He wanted a 24-foot to take advantage of his moving style, but the ring was supposed to be an 18-footer, which is better suited for Alvarez (55-1-2, 37 KOs). I wrote about the issue here, so check it out: https://www.ringtv.com/621373-billy-joe-saunders-threatens-to-pull-out-of-canelo-fight/

Later on Tuesday, Saunders posted a video to social media saying the issue had been worked out, so I wrote this story to update the situation: https://www.ringtv.com/621396-canelo-alvarez-and-billy-joe-saunders-settle-issue-on-ring-size/

Quick hits

Light heavyweight contender Joshua Buatsi (13-0, 11 KOs), 28, of England, will face Daniel Blenda Dos Santos (15-0, 8 KOs), 30, of France, in a regional title bout at the AO Arena in Manchester, England, on May 14 (DAZN in the U.S., Sky Sports in the U.K.), Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn announced. The fight will be Buatsi’s first under the guidance of trainer Virgil Hunter. The bout is on the card headlined by the previously announced women’s junior lightweight title unification bout between Terri Harper and Hyun-Mi Choi. “I've got an unbeaten opponent. That makes him ambitious,” Buatsi said. “Obviously, it's the first fight under Virgil, so it should be interesting. I'm looking forward to showing what I've been working on with Virgil.”

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Former heavyweight titlist Joseph Parker suffered a right elbow injury midway through his grueling split decision win over Dereck Chisora on Saturday in Manchester, England, according to manager David Higgins. “Joe did tell me that he suffered an elbow injury halfway through,” Higgins told Sky Sports in the United Kingdom. “He hasn’t said that publicly. I don’t know if he will, but he did tell me that. He’s going to get his right elbow looked at, because that could be why you didn’t see the flurry at the end when Chisora was on the ropes. Joseph, he’s got a bit of an issue that’s he’s going to get looked at, and hopefully cleared. Hopefully it’s a minor issue.” Parker, who survived a first-round knockdown, has previously had surgery on both elbows.

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The final IBF flyweight title eliminator between Jay Harris (18-1, 9 KOs), of Wales, and Ricardo Sandoval (18-1, 13 KOs), of Rialto, California, which was scheduled for May 14 at the University of Bolton Stadium in Bolton, England, and slated to stream on ESPN+ in the United States, has been postponed, MTK Global announced. No reason was given for the postponement but MTK said the fight would be rescheduled.

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The fight between former junior middleweight titlist Liam Smith (29-2-1, 16 KOs), of England, who is 6-1 since losing his title to Canelo Alvarez in 2016, and Russia’s Magomed Kurbanov (21-0, 13 KOs) for a vacant regional junior middleweight belt on Friday at KRK Uralets in Ekaterinburg, Russia, will stream on ESPN+ in the U.S. beginning at 11 a.m. ET, Top Rank announced. The stream will include several undercard bouts, including welterweight Eduard Skavynskyi (13-0, 7 KOs), who was born in Ukraine and now resides in Ekaterinburg, facing former world title challenger Joel “Love Child” Julio (39-5, 33 KOs), of Colombia, in a 10-rounder.

Show and tell

I have covered many dozens of fights at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas over the past 20 years and for several years for every boxing show held there, and some at T-Mobile Arena, for which MGM was the host, the fight art was used on the credit card-like room keys during fight week. Needless to say, I saved all of mine and always went back for several more from each fight. So, I am loaded with keys from a ton of fights held there, including from seven Canelo Alvarez events. Since this is Canelo-Saunders week, I figured it would be a good time to display my Canelo room key collection from his fights with Josesito Lopez, Floyd Mayweather, Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara, Amir Khan, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and the first Gennadiy Golovkin showdown.

Canelo photo: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing