News that Billy Joe Saunders will battle countryman Martin Murray in his next title defence was never likely to set pulses racing.
The match-up amounts to a routine outing for the middleweight champion, after all, the once relentless Murray having sported some signs of regression at age 35.
Promotional soundbites aside, Saunders will know the domestic clash represents little more than a tick-over, his own complacency likely a bigger threat to the throne than anything Murray can muster.
Not that questions of motivation are novel within the Saunders narrative, of course. His journey has always been defined by a battle of skill versus will, the Briton’s unerring technique hampered only by an occasional indifference to the harder yards.
His pedigree has never been in question, after all, qualification for 2008’s Beijing Games testament to his talent.
He secured that spot on Team GB aged just 18, winning 49 amateur bouts on the spin and racking up a Commonwealth Championship in the process.
By the closing ceremony it seemed clear he was not long for the unpaid ranks however, the Hertfordshire native keen to cash in his Olympic cachet beneath the bright lights of the pro game. Saunders did so under the wily eye of promoter emeritus Frank Warren, he and England stablemate James DeGale seeming set to head up a fresh wave of UK talent.
Alas, no sooner were the pair surfing the crest of that wave than were their commercial prospects on the rocks.
A TV rights wrangle with Sky Sports saw Warren’s stable bowled off Broadway, Saunders left to ply his trade under the nascent banner of BoxNation.
British, Commonwealth and European titles would follow in quick succession, yet the fanfare lagged some way behind. Out of sight is out of mind, Saunders’s lofty standing in boxing circles no longer matched by the court of public opinion.
A transcendent feud with Chris Eubank Jr went some way to redressing that balance, the latter following his father’s lead by pervading the general consciousness.
Their fight duly lived up to the billing, Saunders eking out a split decision after a seesaw battle at London’s Excel Arena. It was a coming of age across the board, a battle which cemented world-level credentials in either corner.
Saunders would eventually test his against our own Andy Lee, the pair’s on-again-off-again date finally penned in for December 2015. They too went the distance, Saunders this time claiming a majority decision and Lee’s WBO belt.
BACK ON TRACK
With that, Saunders assumed his spot on the Middleweight Mount Rushmore, the then 25-year-old joining Gennady Golovkin and Saul Alvarez as the featured faces at 160 lbs.
Some two years would pass before he would consolidate his spot, however, sizable swathes of inactivity jeopardising his status among that elite company.
Several mitigating circumstances were proffered in his defence, yet Saunders' own public utterances suggested the fault fell squarely at his own door.
Irresponsible weight management and a piecemeal approach to training were owed to a lack of motivation, his reckless social media persona incurring the wrath of governing bodies on more than one occasion.
Seeds of change were sown in the shape of new surroundings, Saunders cutting short a career long-link up with famed trainer Jimmy Tibbs in search of some fresh starts.
A partnership with Londoner Adam Booth proved unfruitful, however, the capital’s bubbling metropolis hardly a safe haven to get back on the straight and narrow.
Sheffield’s Wincobank Gym was an altogether more comfortable fit for that bill, head coach Dominic Ingle’s hawkish methods a chance to hammer his new charge into shape.
Sure enough, Saunders' polished displays under Ingle’s auspices have been among his career-best, December’s technical dismembering of former champion David Lemieux arguably the most striking performance of the year.
BoxNation’s new simulcast deal with BT Sport ensured his wares were there for all to see, the virtuoso effort having also been beamed to a captive American audience on HBO.
That perfect storm ensures his claim to the crown has never been stronger, yet the depth of the middleweight division ensures he remains very much the man who could be king.
Golovkin and Canelo still hold sway within the grander scheme, after all, the winner of the pair’s pending rematch a consensus number one by any metric.
Unlike the lead-up to their first clash, however, the shadow of Saunders looms large.
Indeed, if 2017 saw him dismissed as a footnote, 2018 sets him squarely on the title page.
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