News about Billy Joe Saunders

A huge battle is ongoing over an extravagant memorial for the 'King of Sheffield' Big Willy Collins - but who was the bare-knuckle boxer? Willy Collins (pictured with his wife) died in July 2020 at the age of 49, more popular as 'Big Willy', while on a family holiday in Majorca, Spain. The patriarch, a Sheffield traveller, was on the holiday to commemorate his wife's 48th birthday - Kathleen, who fell in love with her when she was 11 years old. Several well-known boxing names - including Tyson Fury, Billy Joe Saunders, and Ezekiel "Kell" Brook - were paid tribute on his death. Hundreds of mourners from around the globe attended his flamboyant burial, where his 22-carat gold coffin was pulled by a white horse-drawn carriage was pulled by a white horse-drawn carriage. However, the council said it had breached the planning permission, and that his £200,000 37-ton marble headstone was the subject of controversies. Inset: His family was at his memorial service.

In their middleweight match at the Copper Box Arena this weekend, Amir Khan has backed Hamzah Sheeraz to defeat Liam Williams. Khan claims that the undefeated 24-year-old has the speed, strength, and movement to put a halt to the former world champion contester on Saturday night. Khan, who retired from professional boxing in 2022, has praised Sheeraz for his weight division, saying the latter is "most difficult."

The Maracana, Wembley, and the Azteca are among the legendary stadiums to host football's biggest game, the World Cup final. Just 20 venues have had the privilege of hosting the final, with the Maracana and the Azteca performing so on two occasions. FIFA declared on Sunday that AT&T Stadium in Dallas would host the 21st edition of the 104 match tournament co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The 2026 World Cup final is scheduled to be hosted at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, with FIFA selecting the venue ahead of the MetLife Stadium in New York. FIFA will announce the change later this week, according to The Sun, and soccer's governing body is likely to base itself in Texas for the 2026 tournament.

After the Gypsy King scraped a victory over ex-UFC fighter Francis Ngannou, Billy Joe Saunders has suggested that Tyson Fury has 'too many yes men' in his entourage. On Saturday night, Fury defeated Ngannou in his first official boxing match in Riyadh. But not before Ngannou brought him to the canvas in the third round and made him go the distance.

Chris Eubank Jr. has shared more of his father's friendship and outlined the 'physical punishment' Chris Eubank Snr invoked to inflict, before reflecting on how his dad's charlatan comment made him feel. Eubank Snr was instrumental in his son's boxing career, and he was often seen at training camps, clashes, and press conferences. However, their friendship has been tense in recent years.

On Saturday night, Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez defended his disputed super middle-weight crown, defeating John Ryder by a unanimous vote. At the Akron Stadium, it was a brave effort by the English fighter, who stood in front of 50,000 people in Guadala, Mexico, against Alvarez. The match was scored 120-107 on one card and 118-109 on the other two scores, with Alvarez winning by 58-2-2 in his professional career.

There's a home advantage. Then there's the adulation of a whole nation's machismo race. Population: 130 million. In a crammed stadium of patriotic hysteria, sixty thousand of them roared on their idol. When speaking to Mail Sport, Canelo Alvarez, the defender of the controversial world super-middleweight championship and also the admiration of Mexican manhood, puts Saturday night into perspective for English challenger John Ryder.

XCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY MATT DAIVES: John Ryder spoke to Mail Sport ahead of his showdown against Canelo Alvarez on Saturday, claiming he has the potential to be the undefeated super-middlweight champion. For the first time in nearly 12 years, the 34-year-old flies to Mexico, where Canelo will face opponents on home soil for the first time in nearly 12 years in front of about 50,000 knockout fans. 'All the pressure is on Canelo,' Ryder said. 'I am not being pressured on me.' It's his first return to his hometown in a ten-years. I'm coming off a career-best year, while he's likely to be out of a career-worst.'

ISAAN KHAN - SPORTS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR: A Sportsmail investigation reveals that boxers can now obtain performance-enhancing drugs before combats, which allows boxers to lawfully take performance-enhancing drugs before fights. Sportmail sheds a light on a sport marred with contradictions and a persistent lack of boxer care. At least 65 stimulants and ten narcotics, as well as a Class B drug amphetamine and a heroin substitute, are not being tested for by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) in drug samples generated before battle day.

Exclusive INTERVIEW BY JEFF POWELL: Chris Eubank Jnr believes Conor Benn should be punished severely for the chaos he caused on boxing by failing two drug tests that led to the last-minute cancellation of their blockbuster contest last year. But he admits that if Benn returns to the ring, he would happily join him. Eubank has no doubt what the verdict should be as Benn waits for the powers that be to announce their findings on the positive tests, suggesting 'contamination' was to blame - and their suspected cover-ups.

SPECIAL REPORT BY RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Just like the big right hand that came before it, there's a doubt that causes confusion in Chris van Heerden's mind. Every day, a round and round goes, salting an old wound with new suspicions. It has been this way for the thick end of a fortnight now. He finds himself drifting back to that night in April, at Manchester Arena, where this former champion fancied his chance against a buzzed name. He remembers it all. He can recall the warmth of the first session and the subsequent feeling on his stool that indicated that he'd give it another three days to relax the nerves before increasing the heat.

The failed drug test revealed on Wednesday, but Benn's failed drug test came to light, with the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) announcing shortly afterwards that they would no longer be sanctioning his fight against Eubank Jr. With Benn's innocence, it's unclear what happens next. But is there a precedent in place for fighters who test positive for banned substances? Sportsmail looks back at five prominent boxers, including Tyson Fury (top left), Dillian Whyte (bottom left), Saul Alvarez (right), and Billy Joe Saunders (inset), who have all passed positive tests in the past, as well as what happened in each of their cases.

And now a short word from Eddie Hearn. 'What is the point in signing up for drug testing if, when you fail, everyone goes, "Oh don't worry about it, just let him fight"? "Well, it's all right with UKAD," the argument goes, is completely irrelevant. You've committed to drug testing with VADA - the highest testing service, in my opinion.' He's correct, of course, he's right. But that's the problem with talking, isn't it? Some people pay attention to what you say. Some people have backed it up. A few people are even aware of it. A lot, Hearn talks. So, when Billy Joe Saunders returned a similar test before his fight with Demetrius Andrade in 2018 and was fighting for two days to put on a contest starring a headliner who had tested positive against another who was shedding pounds quickly to make a weight, it was a matter of time.

Billy Joe Saunders, the former world champion boxer, has announced that he is back to training twice a day in the hopes of losing a significant amount of weight ahead of his return to the ring. Saunders won the WBO middleweight championship between 2015 and 2018, before stepping up to super-middleweight to win the WBO middleweight title in 2019. However, Canelo Alvarez was defeated for the first time in his professional career in May 2021, and he hasn't fought since being injured in that injury. Saunders has piled on the pounds over the past 16 months, with training footage indicating that he still has some work to do to get back to his fighting weight, but he is back in the gym and contemplating a comeback.

Canelo Alvarez (left) and Gennady Golovkin (right), two members of an historic trilogy, will meet in Las Vegas this weekend, four years after they last met. With Canelo escaping with a split-decision draw in their first fight, the once amicable sparring partners have now fought on two previous occasions, the two teams have met in combat for the first time, with Golovkin winning by a narrower but still controversial majority decision the following year. Now, ahead of their eagerly awaited trilogy, Sportsmail delivers you all the top battle predictions from the sport's leading names, including Ryan Garcia (bottom left) and Amir Khan (bottom right).

JEFF POWELL OF LAS VEGAS: Occasionally, two brave men with the entire compendium of the prize-ring's many talents engage in deadly combat. They push the hardest of all games to the pinnacle of a Noble Art. They do so with a keen eye for movement, laser speed, and precise timing. Each one withstands with a jaw of stone and a heart of oak, with thunderous concussive punching. They should be a pair of the best prize-fighters of their generation, according to such spectacles. We're led to this cathedral city of boxing by Canelo Alvarez (left) and Gennady Golvkin (right).

Officially, Gennady Golovkin is winless at 0-1-1 over Saul Alvarez in their third instalment of the GGG-Canelo trilogy, which will be released in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Or, to hear Golovkin talk about it, he's 2-0. "It's not just my opinion," Golovkin told DailyMail.com through his translator. The IBF and WBA middleweight champion is unquestionably correct about this. Both Golovkin and Alvarez may have fought to a split-decision draw in 2017, but fans and media alike are dismissing Judge Adalaide Byrd's 118-110 scorecard in favour of Canelo as 'absurd.' In contrast, ESPN's Dan Rafael and HBO's Harold Lederman scored the fight 116-112, all in favor of Golovkin. For that matter, Golovkin defeated Canelo by the same score in 2018 despite this. Even though Golovkin out-landed Canelo again and never had his back against the ropes in the fight, official judges handled the situation differently and awarded Alvarez a majority verdict. But don't forget that the 40-year-old Golovkin is haunted by the only two blemishes on his resume. 'The opinion of one incompetent individual would have no effect on me,' he said of the judges' decisions.

It's amazing to note that Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin, two bitter adversaries on the brink of a legendary trilogy match, were once amicable sparring partners. At the time, the two athletes only held two world titles, and with a weight class and an eight-year age difference separating them, perhaps no one would have predicted that a third grudge match would largely define their careers. Both fighters put their reputations on the line on Saturday night, performing on the Las Vegas stage once more, as the pound-for-pound stars restructured their bitter rivalry once and for all, or so we wish.

No fighter is unbeatable. Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (inset left) appeared to be on par with it going into 2022. The popular Mexican had gone 16 fights unbeaten after being outclassed by Floyd Mayweather back in 2013. He had just put together a string of victories that had seen him overthrowrown Sergey Kovalev up to become a four-weight world champion before falling back to 12 stone and defeating Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, and Caleb Plant in the space of 11 months to clear out the super-middleweight division. He seemed to be at the height of his powers at 31, and virtually unstoppable. In May, it all went wrong against Dmitry Bivol (pictured).

PREVIEW OF CANELO VS. GOLOVKIN: The confrontation between Canelo Alvarez (left) and Gennady Golovkin (right) completes their epic trilogy in Las Vegas next weekend, with bitter rivalry reigning. On two separate occasions, two pound-for-pound champions have shown the ring for two years, both of which have lasted the distance and ended in a highly contested fashion. Canelo escaped with a split-decision draw in their first match of 2017 (inset), a fight that most believe the Mexican lost, before winning a majority-decision victory in their highly awaited rematch just a year later this year.

After telling a court that he needed his car so he could continue treating the former world heavyweight champion, boxer Tyson Fury's official masseur (right and bottom inset with the boxer) was given a driving ban. Matthew Towey, 27, (left outside the courthouse), had disqualified under a veto procedure after spotting texting behind the steering wheel of his Ford Fiesta while driving past a police station. However, the businessman (inset top, with Noel Gallagher) retained his license under 'exceptional hardship' conditions, claiming that it would place his 57-year-old father, who is dependent on him, in a difficult situation.