Two-division world champion Billy Joe Saunders has only suffered one defeat to Canelo Alvarez during his professional career, but despite that loss, there is another man who stands out to Saunders as the only fighter he feels that he could never beat.
Saunders suffered a gruesome orbital bone injury in his loss to Canelo, causing a lengthy spell away from the ring, but the Brit told the Keep A LukeOut Podcast about an opponent he faced in the amateurs who he believes trumps all of his previous foes.
“There was a Russian called Andrey Balanov and he was the supreme of boxers. I remember just watching this fella on YouTube, I didn’t care who I boxed, but I remember watching him when they [my team] got him up, because I didn’t even have Facebook at the time.
“I was watching this fella and I was thinking ‘f**k me, I do not want to fight him, I am not going to beat this man.’ I remember the first bell going and I kid you not, it was something like I have never experienced in my whole life, what a boxer this man was.”
Saunders then revealed how his Olympic dream was what inspired him to give everything in the bout.
“He sent me back to the corner and it was 7-0 to him, technically just unbelievable, but he was old, he was like thirty and I was young. Coming back from the second round it was like 13-1 to him and I remember looking at the GB Team and David Price was filming it for Neil Perkins, who was hoping for me to lose [to get the spot at the Olympics].
“I thought, ‘you know what, I am just going to throw the kitchen sink at him’ and I went out for the third round, with two rounds left, I threw my head and shoulders, everything I could throw at him I was throwing.
“I come back from the third-round and it was like 17-12 going into the last round and I thought ‘I’ve got him’. I come out again and I ended up beating him. When I beat him, I couldn’t believe it.
“Being in the ring with him, if he was in his prime amateur time, I don’t think that there was a welterweight to ever beat him.”
Both Saunders and Balanov were defeated in the second-round of the subsequent Beijing 2008 Olympics, with Carlos Banteux getting the better of Saunders, whilst Balonov lost out to eventual two-division world champion Demetrius Andrade.