Frank Warren has suggested a former world champion could soon make a welcome return to the ring.
Plenty of fighters find it hard to walk away from boxing and back into civilian life. Right now, Warren’s former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is one such boxer who has been out of the sport since January when he revealed he was retiring via social media.
That news came a couple of weeks after his second consecutive defeat to Oleksandr Usyk – the only two losses of his professional career.
Many hope that, as has been the case before, he will in fact change his mind and return to take on Anthony Joshua in an epic showdown before both men finally hang up their gloves for good.
Speaking to talkSPORT Boxing, Fury’s promoter Warren revealed that another of his former charges, Billy Joe Saunders, is also talking up a return.
“He came up and saw me a couple of weeks ago, and we had a chat. We’ll see what happens. After a couple of fights, he feels he can get down [from light-heavyweight to super-middleweight], we’ll see.”
Saunders himself also told talkSPORT that he wants to see what he has left.
“There’s a lot of questions, a lot of demons inside me I need to get out. There’s only one way to get them out and to answer the questions and that is by getting back in the ring. Let’s see what I’ve got left there.”
Saunders hasn’t fought since May 2021 when he challenged Canelo Alvarez out in the US. The WBO ruler was coming off a long layoff but made a good start to the fight and banked some early rounds before being caught with a hellacious uppercut, which broke his orbital bone.
Despite initially carrying on, he remained on his stool at the conclusion of the eighth round and Canelo added his belt to the WBA and WBC straps he already owned.
Saunders famously fought Chris Eubank Jr on a Warren event much earlier in his career back in 2015 and got a narrow points win. Ever since then, there has been talk of a rematch from both sides as the dislike for one another has boiled on.
Eubank was last out in April when he beat Conor Benn in a tough 12-round war. Ahead of that, Benn attempted to have Saunders be the man who checked Eubank’s hand wraps as part of the pre-fight mind games.
