Billy Joe Saunders pre-fight comments come back to haunt him after claiming he’d rather DIE than quit against Canelo

BILLY JOE SAUNDERS will struggle for sympathy over his Canelo surrender after slaughtering Daniel Dubois.

The 23-year-old took a knee after taking six rounds of punishment to his broken orbital bone from heavyweight juggernaut Joe Joyce, in November.

DDD was ahead on the cards so his team were reluctant to pull him out of the contest.

But, when another ruthless jab landed from the Team GB silver winner, Dubois took a knee and was counted out.

The Londoner was found to have a cracked eye socket, the same fracture Saunders is reported to have suffered in round eight of his Texas shootout.

But, unlike Dubois, 31-year-old Saunders called time on the fight in the first break after suffering the injury - from a Canelo uppercut  - and has been hammered on social media for his hypocrisy.

On December 2, Saunders told DAZN: “ “Fighters get in that ring and we know what’s on the line.

“Every fighter needs to understand and the fans need to understand that. In the past, we’ve seen a lot of tragedies in boxing, deaths in the ring.

“Before I go on one knee I’d like to go out on my back with my pulse stopped.

“Everyone has their own thought process in the ring and what went on in the ring I don’t know. He obviously felt he could not continue.

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“You look at the greats, the eyes, the face, we get through that. That’s the path in life we choose for a living. We punch people in the face and get punched in the face.

“If my two eye sockets were broken, my jaw was broken, my teeth were out, my nose was smashed, my brain was beaten, I was not stopping until I was knocked out or worse.

“I don’t agree with a man taking the knee and letting the ref count him out.”

Saunders had claimed before the bout that he would happily die in the ring if it meant he was able to topple the pound-for-pound Mexican superstar.

But he slipped through the ropes and was taken to hospital shortly after the bell ended the eighth round.

Saunders told Canelo on Wednesday that he had never faced a man with a heart like the Hatfields Traveller.

But Saunders was unable to rise from his stool for round nine and go out on his shield like he had needlessly promised, and his Twitter trolls were not going to let him forget it: