Alvarez vs. Saunders Boxing predictions: Saunders can make Canelo work

May 7, 2021; Arlington, Texas, USA; Boxer Canelo Alvarez flexes for the fans during weigh ins for his super middleweight boxing title fight against Billy Joe Saunders at AT&T Stadium.

Matthew Lowrimore

Boxing

Show Bio

Matthew has been with Pickswise for a while now, covering a wide variety of sports. His main passions are college football and UFC, and those are the sports he has covered the most. Matthew uses a variety of methods to handicap games, including stats, trends, injuries, and situational factors. His goal is to consistently give out winners and will put in the research to try and achieve this.

@Sixfigurematt

Published: 23:32 PM ET May 07, 2021

Who is fighting

Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders prepare to face off in Dallas on Saturday night and we are in store for a crazy fight.

This bout will see Alvarez, the WBA and WBC title holder, and one of boxing’s pound-for-pound kings against the unbeaten Saunders. Not to mention that Saunders holds the WBO title belt.

There have certainly been some insane away victories in boxing across the years, but if Saunders were to win at Jerry World (home of the Dallas Cowboys), it would easily go down as one of the greatest upsets ever. Not even in terms of the betting price since Saunders is roughly +500. More so by the fact that the English fans were not allowed to travel due to Covid, so it will be more or less a hostile crowd of about 60,000.

Where to watch this bout

DAZN, approx 11pm ET Saturday, May 8th, 2021

Recent Fights for Alvarez and Saunders

Calling Alvarez elite is an understatement and recent wins over Gennady Golovkin, Danny Jacobs and Sergey Kovalev give us an idea of the task that Saunders will be facing on Saturday night.

Alvarez has also beaten plenty of British boxers in his time. This includes Callum Smith, Rocky Fielding, Liam Smith, Amir Khan, Ryan Rhodes, and Matthew Hatton to name a few. However, Saunders will look to be the lucky number seven in taking down the Mexican.

The Englishman beat Andy Lee to win the WBO middleweight title and successfully defended that belt against David Lemieux in Canada.

While those opponents are not nearly on the level of Canelo, the fact that Saunders is still unbeaten suggests there is still a chance he can pull off the upset. Especially because the 31-year-old is going to be in fantastic physical condition, which has not always been the truth.

Keys to the Fight

The biggest problem for Saunders, other than the skill of his opponent and being in an unfriendly environment, is the weight class he will be fighting in. Clearly, Canelo was successful in making the step up to light-heavyweight, beating Kovalev in 2019. One can argue that that Saunders is more effective in the Middleweight division and will likely have to make an adjustment for this fight against a guy who is oversized for the division.

Canelo’s biggest advantage in this fight is his counter-punching, but Saunders has the skills to avoid getting caught by the heavy hands of the Mexican. It is more than possible that Saunders will look to be busy with striking of his own in order to slow down Alvarez. The other option is that he will just look to stay out of range in his strange southpaw stance.

Best Bet

It is going to be a tough task for Saunders to get the decision against this strong of an opponent, so instead of backing a winner, we just like for this fight to go the entire 12 rounds.

Fight to go the full 12 Rounds (-120)

@BetMGM

To go along with our best bet, backing Canelo Alvarez to win on the cards will be our other bet for this fight.