What it's like to share a ring with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and his punch power, as Billy Joe Saunders -

Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez is the biggest star in the world of boxing right now and possesses an aura and presence which transcends sport.

A global icon and a powerhouse in the business world, the Mexican is firmly at the top of the pound-for-pound list and is zoned in on becoming a billionaire too.

Yet his hopes and dreams can be dashed this Saturday night in Texas when he takes on Billy Joe Saunders in a super-middleweight unification title fight.

Canelo has a tremendous record against British fighters; emerging victorious from all six meetings with opponents from Blighty.

Callum Smith was the most recent foe to fail against the Mexican, being dismantled systematically before Christmas.

Although Saunders has never tasted defeat in 30 professional fights, the WBO king of the 168lbs knows he has it all to do against one of the very best of this generation.

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One man who knows all about the pitfalls of facing Canelo is Matthew Hatton, the former European welterweight champion who fought him in 2011.

With Manny Pacquiaio’s recently relinquished WBC super-welterweight title on the line, Hatton jumped at the opportunity to face the fresh-faced superstar in Los Angeles.

“I must admit, Canelo was the rising star in world boxing,” he told talkSPORT. “He was a superstar already.

“And I must admit, it did surprise me quite how big of a star he was back then. The backing he gets, the crowd he gets.

“I was experienced at the time and had been around the game for a long time but, I must admit, it did shock me just how popular he was and how much he was being backed.

“I knew straight away when I boxed Canelo, even probably within the first two rounds; it certainly hasn’t shocked me that he has gone on to achieve what he has in the sport.

“I knew straight away I was in the ring with a special fighter.”

As with Saunders and the recently resolved issue with the ring size, Canelo used his superstar status to play mind games with his British opponent and get him sweating.

Hatton described his opponent on the night as looking like ‘Popeye after the spinach’ and played on the Brit’s willingness to fight.

He added: “Canelo was huge on the night and that’s the thing with these top fighters, they’ve got very good teams around them who are looking for every little advantage that they can get.

“And with me, they certainly played it right with the weight. They knew exactly what they were doing at every step with the fight.

“We agreed to fight originally at welterweight. Then, when I was in training for the camp, about three or four weeks in they said Manny Pacquaio was going to be stripped of his world light-middleweight title, but we would have to make the fight slightly heavier – so at 10st 10lbs.

“I was always a career welterweight and I remember at the weigh-in, Canelo never made the weight – he was just over two pounds heavier. He had an hour to go back and make the weight, but he came back even heavier so he hadn’t even tried to make the weight.

“I spoke to my team and I had been training a long time and I was over in LA, with several of my supporters watching, so I could have walked away with a percentage of my purse. But it wasn’t my style, I still wanted to fight.

“These special fighters have great teams round them and they look for every little edge they can get.”

The fight itself was at a furious pace, with neither man backing down and Canelo trying to use his obvious size and weight advantage to bully the travelling fighter.

Despite being bloodied and battered, Hatton kept firing back combination punches in the hope of stopping the momentum, but lost a wide points decision in the end.

Yet the experience of being inside that ring with Canelo has never left Hatton, who now trains his nephew Campbell, and he remembers the technical nous which matched the brute force and aggression.

He said: “Literally being in the ring with him inside 30 seconds and I think he threw a left hook which I blocked on the glove and I was like ‘Jesus Christ, this is going to be a long tough night’.

“A really strong puncher, physically so strong and he picks his punches so well so I knew straight away it was going to be a really tough night.”

Like his elder brother Callum, Liam Smith also spent serious time in the ring with Canelo, going nine rounds in front of a vociferous Dallas crowd in 2016.

Having been dropped in the seventh, Smith was crumpled once again with a vicious left hook to the body as he surrendered his WBO super-welterweight crown.

Although the power played a crucial role on the night, the Liverpudlian rememebers the 30-year-old as simply being so complete and well-rounded.

He told talkSPORT: “There aren’t many chinks in his armour; he’s defensively very good, he is technically very good, his power is very good and he has got everything.

“That’s why I think he is so hard to figure out; he can box, he can fight, he can move and I think Billy Joe is in for a bit of a long night with him to be honest with you.

“I don’t think it is his key strength,” he added. “His boxing ability and ring IQ are more impressive than his power.

“But the power is good enough to get anyone’s respect.”

If Saunders is to emerge on Sunday morning as the proud new owner of the WBC, WBA and Ring Magazine titles, the consensus is that he must use every inch of the ring to fight off his back foot and get on his bike.

And Hatton believes that superior foot speed could be crucial if the two-weight world champion is to leave Texas with his reputation enhanced after pulling off one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.

He concluded: “One thing I have always said about Canelo, and I wouldn’t say it is a weakness for me because he has become such a complete fighter, but certainly the speed of foot.

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