Report- Canelo-Billy Joe Saunders To Be At AT&T Stadium

We’ve known the fighters and the date, but a report Thursday night says we have a site for the upcoming Mexican legend Canelo Alvarez’s Unified Super Middleweight showdown with England’s Billy Joe Saunders.

Mike Coppinger of the Athletic reported Thursday night that Canelo will battle the Brit on Saturday night May 8th at the Dallas Cowboys home, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX,

Sources: The Canelo Alvarez-Billy Joe Saunders super middleweight title unification will be held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Eddie Hearn and Canelo can use the full capacity of the stadium if they wish. Stadium holds over 100,000 when expanded

— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) March 19, 2021

The Saunders fight had been confirmed by Matchroom and promoter Eddie Hearn for “Cinco De Mayo” weekend after Alvarez’s last title defense late last month, as he stopped Avni Yildirim in three rounds in Miami. That win put the four division World Champ’s record to 55-1-2 with 37 KOs.

Alvarez and Saunders were to have fought last May before the Covid-19 pandemic shut the sport down. In the meantime after, Saunders got himself indefinitely suspended by the British boxing Board of Control for comments he made on a social media video joking about domestic violence.

Saunders, the 30-0 WBO Super Middleweight Champ, got himself re-instated and successfully defended his crown in a largely boring 12 round decision over nearly 40 year old, fellow countryman Martin Murray in December.

This stands to be the largest payday of his career, when he steps through the ropes with Alvarez.

As for the venue and as Coppinger tweeted, AT&T stadium is a massive venue that can hold in the neighborhood of 100,000 people at full capacity for boxing. And, Matchroom, Hearn and Canelo also know that Texas has “re-opened for business” at 100% capacity and lifted their statewide mask mandate for Covid 19.

This will allow tens of thousands of more fans to buy tickets for immensely popular Canelo at a venue that is not only near his home country, but that has a huge Hispanic/Mexican population in the region and state.

There had been logical speculation that Alvarez would fight in Las Vegas for that weekend, as he has numerous times in his career. That included his 2019 decision win over Daniel Jacobs in Vegas. However, there are still concerns in Nevada about how many fans can gather for events.

Canelo fought at Hard Rock Stadium (an outdoor venue) in February that seated some 20,000 at reduced capacity for Covid 19 guidelines in Florida. However, the actual crowd was fewer than 15,000 for the event.

Alvarez will be fighting for the third time in less than six months, when he battles Saunders. This includes his 12 round win over England’s Callum Smith that got him the WBA version of the 168 lb. title last December.

This frequent activity is due in part to him getting a percentage of new subscriber sign ups monthly on DAZN in addition to his guarantee from Matchroom.