The Gypsy Championship: An In Depth Look at Billy Joe Saunders Vs Andy Lee

By Jesse “New School” Wright

As Billy Joe Saunders so perfectly put it “There is no place in our community for the loser of this fight.” In a poor community of Irish nomads who are often considered gypsies, there is very little in the form of material belongings to lay claim to. Their history is rooted in settling family differences through violent, bare knuckle boxing that only ends when one man is still standing. With little to their name, the only true currency is pride.Last Saturday, we saw the one punch come back artist Andy Lee take on the quick and gutsy Billy Joe Saunders for Lee’s WBO
middle weight championship as well as bragging rights in the Irish Traveler Community. Saunders represented the English chapter and Lee bared the flag of the Ireland. In the battle for traveler supremacy, we look at how respect, focus and ultimately guts dictated the pace of a fight that determined the new landscape of boxing’s most compelling weight division.

Before the first bell ever rang, the pace of the fight could be predicted based on the body language of each fighter. Billy Joe entered the ring first. In the darkness of the entrance platform was a silhouette of a fighter dancing confidently. With his back to the crowd, he looked comfortable to the point of having lighthearted fun. As he began to dance down the aisle confidently, the eyes told a different story. Saunders looked visibly nervous, to the point that the dancing and jiving could be construed as a guise of his frazzled nerves. Perhaps he was using the same tactic as fellow England based Irish traveler Tyson Fury. In Fury’s upset of Heavyweight kingpin Wladimir Klitschko, Fury portrayed confidence until he internalizes it. Despite later admitting some self doubt. Amid the high tension and even fans making aggressive lunges past security for a chance to grab him, Saunders maintained hypnotic focus on the ring ahead.

Andy Lee entered the ring looking equally anxious. No gimmicks and no acting, Lee looked entirely about taking care of business. Unlike Saunders, Lee looked like a man with his lunch packed on his way to a work site. He gave you the idea that he came with a plan in place, and a task that he expected to follow through with. Emotions were not going to skew this man away from his path. When the two men met in the ring for the final stare down, there was one thing that these two men shared aside from a ring and lineage: mutual respect.

The first round set a tone of general caution that would be the overall theme of the fight. Both fighters met in the middle of the ring, face to face. Both men maintained wide stances as if to give themselves enough room to step out if anything got messy. The punch output was relatively low, and both fighters circled counterclockwise. The movement around the ring was a result of Saunders (a southpaw) circling away from the devastating one punch power of Lee’s (also southpaw) left hook. Lee followed the movement of Saunders in order to always stay in front. At 6’2, Lee utilized his height and reach advantage over the 5’11 opponent by continually pumping the jab. The majority of the fight was similar as the mutual respect between the two was so high that the predictable circling resembled somewhat of a slow dance that both fighters agreed to participate in. The first man to take a risk seemed to be the one who would be rewarded.

In the only round of the fight that would prove to generate real fireworks, one fighter took that chance in the third. Lee seemed to be controlling the fight by utilizing his jab to exploit his reach advantage. Through most of the fight, Saunders was hiding behind a peekaboo style of guard with his hands high enough to keep his chin safely tucked away. After two rounds of success with the jab, Lee clearly became comfortable in the way things were unfolding and started to flash his left straight with the malicious intentions of either scaring Saunders from trying to get inside or simply killing him. In a fight that was predicatively redundant, Saunders created an earth quaking momentum shifter in a fight that generated little more than a blip on the radar in the 11 other rounds.

As Lee looked stagnant throughout the fight, Saunders knew his chances would come by getting inside when his taller opponent over extended on his slower punches. Saunders found some success throughout the fight timing his slower opponent and getting inside to do just enough damage with his quicker punches. Finally, Saunders showed the guts of a thief in broad daylight by stepping in under Lee’s left straight. With the precision of a heat guided missile, Saunders exploded out over the top and smashed Lee with a perfect right hook for a knock down. When Lee got up Saunders showed great patience to slow the tempo and let his opponent feel comfortable. After an exchange that had Saunders stepping back, Lee contently left his chin open only to get floored again with a big right hook that Saunders threw while moving backwards.

Lee seemed to get control of the fight as it progressed from there. His desperation led him back to the left hook that has rescued him out of some deep, dark holes in the past from almost certain losses to Matt Korobov and Peter Quillin. Although Lee did land some big shots, Saunders showed a worthy chin to eat them with little visual damage. Saunders also fought smart enough to not fall in to range of Lee’s left hook. After 12 rounds, Saunders won an extremely close decision. The flash of courage in the third round shown by Saunders to break the cycle was unquestionably the moment that won the fight.

In a division that has the boxing world all giddy over 2016, Saunders will likely be stepping in to the biggest challenges of his career. Coming from a culture where pride is the only currency, Saunders now wears a belt that is symbolic of that character. Coming from a culture where disagreements are settled with fists rather than words, we can only hope that Saunders carries over this tradition when choosing opponents. If the guts he showed in the third round are indicative of how he makes career decisions, fans won’t be disappointed in 2016.

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