Career
"Caravan Kid" Saunders lives with his family on a Travellers' encampment near Hatfield, Hertfordshire and fights for Hoddesdon ABC. Originally from Cheshunt, Saunders is the great-grandson of one of Britain's most famous Romany bareknuckle champions, Absolom Beeney. His father Tom, a former amateur, also admits to being involved in a bareknuckle scrap once "to sort things out, the way the Travelling community does".
The southpaw won his first 49 amateur fights at senior level in a row, including the Commonwealth Championships in 2007 and the Strandya Cup 2008 edging out Cuban Carlos Banteux.
In 2008 Saunders qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the Welterweight division at the age of 18. Saunders qualified at the European area qualifier in Pescara, Italy. He beat European champion Andrey Balanov and Kakhaber Zhvania , he lost his semi to Oleksandr Stretskyy before beating the Slovakian, Pavol Hlavacka for the all-important third spot. He went to Beijing as the first person from the British Romany Gypsy community to qualify for the games, where he was defeated in the second round of the welterweight division. He was subsequently suspended for "lewd behaviour", allegedly pertaining to an incident with a local woman during a pre-season training camp in France. In early December 2008, Saunders signed professional terms along with James DeGale and Frankie Gavin with Frank Warren.
Saunders made his professional debut on 28 February 2009 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham against Attila Molnar. Billy Joe looked confident from the opening bell, landing hard combinations which were just too much for Molnar. In round two, a series of punches that landed flush on Molnar's chin caused the referee to stop the fight and save a dazed Molnar. He won his second fight by second round stoppage of Ronny Gabel and his third fight, also by second round stoppage, of Matt Scriven. On 9 October 2009, he had to go the full four rounds to outpoint Alex Spitko.
