WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is fully backing his close friend and countryman, Billy Joe Saunders, to pull off a major upset when he faces Mexican superstar Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.

Saunders will fight Canelo in a WBO, WBC, WBA super middleweight world title unification, on May 8th from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Saunders, although unbeaten and fighting at the higher weights for a longer period of time, is a tremendous underdog in the contest.

In his last few fights, Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) has failed to impress most observers.

He was in the ring back in December, picking up a lopsided twelve round unanimous decision win over veteran Martin Murray.

The last time Saunders was able to turn heads was back in December of 2017, when he traveled to Canada and dominated feared puncher David Lemieux over twelve rounds.

On the other hand, Canelo has looked destructive with one-sided super middleweight wins over Callum Smith, Avni Yildirim and Rocky Fielding. Canelo even moved up to light heavyweight and knocked out Sergey Kovalev for the WBO title.

Fury is not only confident in Saunders' ability to win, he expects him to make the contest look a lot easier than anticipated.

"I think Billy Joe gives him a boxing lesson," Fury told Behind the Gloves. "Everyone raves on about Canelo and how good he is, but every time Billy Joe steps into the pressure cooker he delivers, much like myself.

"He's going to shock a lot of people and it's gonna be an easier fight than people think. I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna hold them belts with him when we win."