This weekend sees Billy Joe Saunders and John Ryder finally meet in a fantastic domestic dust-up, when the unbeaten young middleweights battle for Saunders’ British title at the excellent new Copper Box Arena in London. The site at the heart of the capital hosted handball and modern pentathlon at last year’s inspirational home Olympics and what better way to celebrate it’s rebranding as a boxing venue than having Saunders long-awaited clash with Ryder headlining it’s first bill.
Saunders (18-0, 9 KO’s), an Olympian himself having competed in the 2008 games, capitalised on the exposure of Beijing and signed professional papers with Frank Warren in the immediate aftermath. Since then, the 24-year-old from Hatfield has impressed fans and media alike en route to winning and defending British and Commonwealth straps and since stepping up to championship level has dispatched a credible list of domestic contenders in style.
He won his Commonwealth crown with a unanimous decision over Bradley Pryce in June 2012 and saw off the challenge of unbeaten Australian Jarrod Fletcher with ease in just two rounds of his first defence. Before the year was out, he added the British title with a hard-fought twelve rounds against Nick Blackwell and this year, recorded comfortable points wins against Matthew Hall and, last time out, Gary O’Sullivan.
Ryder (15-0, 9 KO’s) had been steadily building up his winning ledger in relatively inconspicuous fashion, until he made observers sit up and take note when he took the unbeaten record of Eamonn O’Kane last December. The Islington southpaw, known as the ‘Gorilla’ because of his strength and aggressive approach, bludgeoned O’Kane to an eighth-round stoppage and in the process became Saunders’ number one contender for the Lonsdale belt.
Talk of the fight started there, but fans have had to wait this long for the match-up. In the meantime, Ryder kept himself busy this year with an eight round points win over Farai Musiyiwa, followed by a two-round stoppage of journeyman Yoann Bloyer in July.
Credit to the late Dean Powell, whose matchmaking put the Copper Box card together with this intriguing headline act. As with any clash of unbeaten, up-and-coming fighters we have more questions than answers as they go into battle.
Saunders is the more proven entity as a professional and combined with the depth of his amateur career is vastly more experienced than his opponent, though Ryder also had a successful amateur slate winning 30 of his 35 bouts. He may not have the pedigree that Saunders has in competing at the highest level with headguards in the Olympics, but his style is more suited to the pro game, with his tactics come Saturday night no doubt based around being the aggressor whilst trying to utilise his edge in power. Though he’s dominated, Saunders has often struggled to put his opponents away and could his lack of power cost him when he steps up to elite level, or even against a strong challenger like Ryder?
Ryder has never been twelve rounds though, whereas Saunders has on several occasions and could Ryder have been flattered somewhat by his win over O’Kane? Saunders has faced a consistently higher-level of competition going into this encounter and is a big favourite to have his hand-raised here and continue on his ascent.
Southpaw Jack's 