Billy Joe Saunders is an English professional boxer. He has held world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO super-middleweight title since 2019, and previously the WBO middleweight title from 2015 to 2018. At regional level he held the European, British, and Commonwealth middleweight titles between 2012 and 2015. As of December 2019, he is ranked as the world’s second best active super- middleweight by BoxRec.
About Billy Joe Saunders in brief
Billy Joe Saunders is an English professional boxer. He has held world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO super-middleweight title since 2019, and previously the WBO middleweight title from 2015 to 2018. He is the first boxer from the Travelling community to become a two-weight world champion. At regional level he held the European, British, and Commonwealth middleweight titles between 2012 and 2015. Saunders represented Great Britain at the 2008 Olympics as an amateur, reaching the second round of the welterweight bracket. In the same year, he won gold at the EU Championships. As of December 2019, he is ranked as the world’s second best active super- middleweight by BoxRec and sixth by The Ring magazine. His great-grandfather, Absolom Beeney, was one of the community’s most famous bare-knuckle boxers. Saunders is a friend and training partner of heavyweight Tyson Fury. He made his professional debut on 28 February 2009 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, against Attila Molnar. On 26 July 2014 he added his next title to his collection with his eighth-round knockout of Euele Blandamura. All three of Saunders’ titles were on the line in a highly anticipated rivalry with Frank Warren’s middleweight team Chris Eubank Jr. The fight took place on 29 November, with the highly anticipated title eliminator taking place on the same night as the middleweight world title fight between Frank Warren and Wladimir Klitschko. Saunders won his first 49 amateur fights at senior level, including the 2007 Commonwealth Championships and the 2008 Strandzha Cup, edging out Cuban Carlos Banteux.
In Beijing he beat Adem Kılıççı in the first round but lost to old foe Carlos Bantesux in the second. He was subsequently suspended for ‘lewd behaviour’ allegedly pertaining to an incident with a local woman during a pre-season training camp in France. On 21 May 2011, he scored an impressive second-round Knockout victory over Kevin Hammond. Saunders went on to score wins against Norbert Szekeres, Gary Boulden and Tony Hill, the last of these giving him his seventh professional knockout victory and his first major regional title, the Commonwealthmiddleweight championship, on 28 April 2012. For his first defence of the title, on 1 June, Saunders went the full twelve-round distance against veteran Bradley Pryce, outpointing him comfortably. A pair of trouble-free fights came next, against tough slugger Matthew Hall on 21 March 2013 and Gary O’Sullivan on 20 July, both of which also lasted twelve full rounds. On 15 December, Saunders fought Nick Blackwell for the vacant British middlewood title. This turned out to be one of Saunders’ first tough outings, as he was forced to go the full 12 rounds en route to a competitive unanimous decision victory on the judges’ scorecards. It would be almost another year until Saunders had his next fight with fellow fellow British prospect John Ryder in September 2013.
You want to know more about Billy Joe Saunders?
This page is based on the article Billy Joe Saunders published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
