Towards the end of March 2021, Eddie Hearn the British boxing promoter and fast becoming one of the most powerful men in world sports, announced a mega fight at AT&T stadium in Arlington, Texas. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, pound for pound the best boxer on the planet would take on the unbeaten “gypsy” from England, Billy Joe Saunders, to unify the Super Middleweight division at 168 pounds in May. This was something that I immediately wanted to be part of. I have been a huge fan of Canelo for a long time. I first saw him fight in Anaheim a decade ago against Matthew Hatton, brother of the great Ricky. He was supposed to fight Julio Chavez Jr in a Mexican clash that would have filled the arena but Chavez withdrew and Hatton became the late stand in, doing better than expected but losing by a wide margin on the judges score cards. Since then Canelo has fought 21 times against many of the top boxers across multiple weight divisions and only lost once, to the great Floyd Mayweather Jr. The state of Texas didn’t care too much for the pandemic and it was announced that the fight at the home of the Dallas Cowboys would have no crowd restrictions and potentially be full to capacity. My dilemma then was being fully vaccinated in time. Over the coming days that dream became a reality. The vaccine rollout was accelerating quickly and it became clear I would have enough time to get it done. My brother in law Mike and my neices boyfriend Isaac were both excited to go too so we bought decent tickets, $150 on the lower level and some fairly cheap flights. We would be there for only 36 hours but decided to take in a Dallas Mavericks NBA game and a Texas Rangers baseball game, which overlapped with the fight from a time perspective but was right next door. On Friday May 7th, we landed in “D-Town”, dropped our stuff at a very nice downtown hotel, The Cambria and took an Uber over to American Airlines Arena for the first of three sports in the next 24 hours.
In contrast to his fellow Dallas billionaire Jerry Jones, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban decided to ignore Texas‘ loosening of Covid-19 guidelines and maximum capacity events and stick to his own plan which for now, was to limit entry to 20%. This for me, made this weekend more interesting as the contrast between this night and the next was going to be vast. Going to a 20% capacity game would be lacking in atmosphere but on the same hand it would be nice to go to an event and not deal with crowds and long lines. It also gave us an opportunity to be a part of something historic, a pandemic sports event.
We took our seats in the top tier of the arena and as impressive as it was, I was struck by how similar all arenas really are. The Mavs fans still generated some decent noise as the play off contenders led by their young superstar Slovenian, Luka Doncic, overwhelmed their inferior opponents, the Cleveland Cavaliers almost immediately from the start.
Doncic ended with 24 points and the impressive Tim Hardaway Jr was not far behind with 20 as the Mavs ran out 110-90 winners. The next morning the day we had been waiting for was here. We started with a magnificent breakfast at a restaurant named “Over Easy” before making our way on foot down to the JFK museum. We were all keen to soak up such a historic site whilst we were here if we had time. The JFK museum is located at the site of where he was assassinated, on the sixth floor of the old book depository building. I couldn’t recommend this highly enough, a very well put together museum which takes you on a visual and audio journey through his presidency and the insane amount of huge events going on at that time, through to the day of and exact window location of his assassination. I was completely overwhelmed by the surreal feeling of standing there looking out at an almost identical scene and landscape from decades ago. Having seen so many documentaries, films and news clips down the years it was haunting to see it first hand.
Upon leaving the museum we wondered around outside on the famous Grassy Knoll and stood on the markings on the street where the President was shot. A truly unforgettable experience and a great piece of history to start the day.
Following that we headed up the Reunion Tower for a panoramic view of the city, almost being blown away by the high winds, before heading back to the hotel for a quick change. We took an Uber to Arlington which is about 20 miles away, around mid afternoon and grabbed some delicious Guy Fieri tacos at “Texas Live“ which is a giant food court with nice restaurants, bars and an abundance of TV screens showing the days sports action. We noticed a group of English lads, very much worse for wear and with a long way to go before cheering on their countryman Saunders. I do wonder if they made it. Texas Live is positioned in between AT&T stadium and Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers MLB team. Globe Life was built only last year as a replacement for the Rangers’ last ballpark which sits, still majestically right across the street. I never did find out what was wrong with it. Maybe they wanted to upgrade with all the sprucing up they were doing in that area. We headed over to their shiny new home around an hour early so we could take it in and leave early for the fight.
As the day had gone on and the anticipation of what we would encounter later that night builded, all of our desires for the baseball started to wane. My original idea was to go for around two hours, from 6pm to 8pm, giving us enough time to get to the fight and see at least one or two pre fights. That goal came down to 7:30pm in my head to 7pm to ultimately half an innings! We knew what we were in Dallas for and we wanted to be part of it for as long as possible. I’m glad we got into Globe Life Field as early as we did as it is truly a beautiful ball park and I would never have seen what a $27 hot dog looks like if we hadn’t.
We took in all the sights, sounds and smells of a Texas ballgame and settled in our seats for half an innings. This time there were no capacity restrictions and the stadium was around half full with just over 20,000 there. I think that’s probably less than normal for a Saturday night but I imagine a lot of people considered the sheer amount of fans next door at a similar time.
We saw the Seattle Mariners take a 2-0 early lead before heading out. Apparently the Rangers won 10-9 which sounds like we missed a good game! I’m glad we did it, ultimately we were in Dallas for a reason and this was an added bonus.
We made the short walk past Texas Live, over a bridge to AT&T Stadium. The place is gigantic and looms over Texas Live and Globe Life Field in the distance like a more intimidating older brother. After a quick stop to buy tacky souvenir Canelo headbands from a street vendor (“$5 or two for $10 for you Sir” - umm thanks?) we entered fairly quickly considering the sheer amount of people present. I personally raised both arms aloft and screamed “YESSS” as we entered the awe inspiring building.
This is an indoor stadium, the kind of which I have never been to before. The temperature I realized afterwards was perfect throughout the night. Compare that with any other stadium in America where due to the length of games, you can go through a variety of different temperatures and weather conditions, starting maybe red hot and neck burning to cold and chilly and wishing you‘d brought a sweatshirt or worn jeans. We were there around 7pm at the same time the TV coverage and card started. We took our $150 seats located in one corner on the 16th row. The first thing that struck me was yeah, ok, these seats are decent but we are still miles away from the ring due to the sheer size of the place and we looked up at tiny ant sized people on the top tier.
We saw Frank Sanchez, an impressive Cuban heavyweight, stay unbeaten against a guy that seemed to fake injury in dramatic fashion in an attempt to force a no contest. I then stood in line for a beer and missed most of the next fight, Englishman Kieron Conway who was beaten by split decision to the talented Soulaymane Cissokho. As the main event grew closer, the crowd got larger and louder. A record indoor boxing crowd of 73,000, mainly Mexican Canelo fans drank, sang and had their own entertaining fights in the crowd. As everyone was cheering for the same guy, one can only imagine the fights broke out due to spilled beer and a longing glance at a girlfriend or a wife. “Culero” was chanted at most perceived losers of such battles in the stands, a not so complimentary Mexican slang term. The security seemed to be very sparse considering the size of the crowd but there were some fans forcibly removed. What a way to miss the occasion, fighting with your own people.
One of these crowd fights though involved some English lads who draped the cross of St George over the second tier above us, only to have it removed by some Canelo fans to great cheers around our section. The flag was tossed down the stands, passed us and ultimately stamped on by the floor seats. Isaac turned to me quite concerned and said “I’m sorry you had to witness that David”. Honestly I couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t have the same affiliation with Saunders as I did for other recent British fighters like his good mate Tyson Fury, Kell Brook or Carl Froch. I’m also not as sensitive as an American when it comes to flag disrespect. The co headline fight was two tiny fellas, Elvin Soto of Mexico defended his junior flyweight world title against a very game Katsunari Takayama, stopping him in the ninth round, although Takayama wasn‘t convinced by the referees decision and entertained the crowd with a hilarious display of shadow boxing shortly afterwards to prove he could have kept going. Then the moment had finally arrived. The stadium was packed to capacity, the color, the noise, the expectation was off the charts. Michael Buffer entered the ring in a lovely white suit and declared we must get ready to rumble. The British national anthem was performed, badly in my opinion, to a chorus of boos from the partisan crowd. It was followed by the Mexican anthem, sung with gusto and the American, performed perfectly and whipped the crowd into an expectant frenzy.
Saunders entered first, not a hint of nerves, dancing and gliding down the long walkway, taking in every breathe of disdain and boos. Confident and with his chest puffed out, he had been reveling in his underdog tag all week, stating he would die in the ring if necessary, adding gypsies don’t quit and he won’t need to because he’ll knock Canelo out.
Time for Canelo to enter, backed by a full band and colorful dancers and singers, the crowd loved every second. He too looked confident as he always does. Never a trash talker, always composed, confident in his own supreme talent. The undisputed pound for pound champion had uncharacteristically been irritated by Saunders‘ mind games in the week and this one seemed personal. Michael Buffer made his introductions which by the way I noticed on the TV coverage were very loud but we could barely hear him from our 16th row. The noise was deafening.
And so it began, the unification of two great champions, one with the whole crowd behind him, one with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove. The first round was very cagey. Both men feeling each other out and sizing each other up. Saunders appeared to be the busier but Canelo as he usually does, landed the more meaningful shots. Judges seem to score this type of round differently in fights. In his first epic contest with Gennady ”GGG” Golovkin, Canelo was deemed by many to have lost due to his perceived inactivity. The fight was a draw but a closer inspection in my opinion sees Canelo winning by one round due to the higher volume of power punches. This time it was he on the front foot, stalking Saunders around the bigger ring that the Englishman had demanded a few days earlier otherwise he would pull out of the fight, which was highly unlikely due to the size of the pay check and his reputation on the line. Saunders however was boxing very well, absorbing Canelo’s deadly body shots and pinning him back with some solid jabs and combinations.
At the start of the eighth round, I had Canelo up 5-2. Some ring side analysts had Saunders winning, some Canelo narrowly. Having watched it back now, Saunders did a lot better than I originally thought and maybe the Mexican oohs and ahhs clouded my opinion a little. The eighth was most definitely Canelo’s round. He rocked Saunders two or three times with huge right hands to the cheek and right eye. The crowd roared, Canelo responded uncharacteristically by demanding more noise, raising his arm to gee them up even more. We didn’t need it. At the end of the round Saunders slumped onto his stool, his right eye closed completely and his cheek clearly inverted. His corner tried in vain but as he shook his head a couple of times his trainer decided he couldn’t go on. Gypsies don‘t quit but when your orbital is busted what can you do? It was over, Canelo was lifted onto the shoulders of his trainer Eddie Reynoso and the crowd celebrated. A fantastic end to a monumental occasion. We had been a part of history and it was worth every dollar.
As we left the stadium we were almost run over by an ambulance which now reading reports, was probably Saunders being rushed to hospital. It will be a long way back from that type of injury if at all but a rematch down the line would definitely be worth watching. We waited over an hour for an Uber, witnessed a female virtually unconscious and with probable alcohol poisoning, helped into a car by friends and my brother in law Mike. A few hours of sleep and up in the air again from Fort Worth and home for Mother’s Day lunch. What a night, what a trip.