The numbers of the fight between Canelo and Billy Joe Saunders

The Mexican unified super middleweight titles, set an attendance record and reached 16 wins in championship fights.
Mexico’s Canelo Alvarez unified another super middleweight title after handing Britain’s Billy Joe Saunders the first loss of his career after his corner stopped the fight at the end of the eighth round.

Canelo Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) now holds the World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) super middleweight championships, and wants to face International Boxing Federation champion Caleb Plant to unify all four belts.

Attendance at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, was 73,126, setting a new U.S. record for an indoor boxing match. The previous record was 63,350 for the Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks rematch in 1978.

Canelo Alvarez was slow to ignite and was even out-punched by Saunders in three consecutive rounds (31-18 from the fifth to the seventh episode), however, the eighth round changed the fight as the Mexican connected his most power punches (12), including a powerful right uppercut that immediately caused inflammation in Saunders’ right eye, forcing his corner to stop the fight.

Despite the stoppage, Canelo Alvarez was up on all three judges’ scorecards (77-75, 78-74, 78-74) and appeared to be in control of the fight due to the accuracy of his punches.

Canelo Alvarez connected on more than 50 percent of his power punches for the third consecutive fight and became the fourth reigning champion to hold at least three belts in a division, joining Anthony Joshua (heavyweight), Jermell Charlo (junior middleweight) and Teofilo Lopez (lightweight).

In addition, Canelo Alvarez continues to climb the list of top Mexican champions in history after adding his 16th win in world championship fights, surpassing Miguel Canto with the third most all-time among Mexicans behind only Julio Cesar Chavez (31) and Ricardo ‘Finito’ Lopez (25).

For Saunders (30-1, 14 KOs), who suffered multiple eye socket fractures, it was the first loss of his career and the former middleweight champion is now 7-1 in world championship fights.

Saunders came into the fight allowing the third fewest power punches allowed in all of boxing (4.6 per round) and while he was successful in the middle rounds, Canelo Alvarez managed to land 7.3 power punches per round in their bout.