By Arne K. Lang
Several people of this writer’s acquaintance were present when Dimitry Bivol wrapped up his training for last Saturday’s match with Canelo Alvarez. These individuals, neutral observers, accorded Bivol scant chance of winning. He just didn’t hit hard enough.
Indeed, Bivol’s last six fights had gone the full 12 rounds and his fight before that had lasted into the 12[SUP]th[/SUP] before it was stopped. And it wasn’t as if this septet was a murderers’ row. Joe Smith Jr was the best of the lot and he had been out-pointed by faded veteran Sullivan Barrera.
I may have been biased by these preconceptions as I watched the fight. In common with all three judges, I had Canelo winning the first four rounds (but only one round thereafter).
I was jotting down notes as I watched the fight. My first notation came in round two. I noted that Canelo landed some hard body shots. A bit later, I noted that although Bivol had the higher work rate, his punches were not of the thudding variety. When Canelo first started fighting with his back to the ropes, eating leather without getting hurt, I thought it was intentional; a psychological ploy. And as the fight wore on, I anticipated that Canelo’s liver shots would eventually take the starch out of his opponent, giving the Mexican the opening he needed to tilt the fight back in his favor. This had been Canelo’s pathway to victory in the past.
I was wrong and it wouldn’t have been the first time that my scorecard was off-kilter. Most of the pundits had Bivol winning big and thought it was nuts that Canelo could have salvaged a draw by winning the final round. “(Bivol) continually battered Canelo throughout the fight,” wrote W.G. Ramirez for the Associated Press. “A disgusting display,” is what ESPN’s Mike Coppinger called the three identical scorecards.
Other Winners and Losers
Canelo Alvarez, a title-winner in four weight classes, unbeaten in his last 16 fights, was the consensus #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
The Ring magazine fairly invented the “pound-for-pound” taxonomy and is the most widely cited source for this assessment. In their ratings, updated on April 30, Oleksandr Usyk clocked in at #2, followed by Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue, and Errol Spence Jr.
Usyk now leapfrogs Canelo Alvarez onto the top of the leaderboard. Few boxing writers aside from Phil Jay saw the irony in this. A Russian boxer, Dmitry Bivol, just gifted a Ukrainian boxer, Oleksandr Usyk, a symbolic victory.
A common thread in post-fight stories was that Alvarez, going forward, needs to return to his best fighting weight: 168 pounds. If he heeds that counsel, there are two compelling fights out there for him: David Benavidez, assuming he gets past David Lemieux on May 21 (Benavidez, who will be fighting on his home turf in Arizona, is a prohibitive favorite) or a third encounter with Gennady Golovkin who would abandon his middleweight title for the opportunity.
Before fighting Bivol, Team Canelo provisionally agreed to the date of Sept. 17 (Mexican Independence Day weekend) for Canelo-GGG III. But they let the second do-over marinate beyond the “sell-by” date, waiting until GGG was an old man (he turned 40 last month) and now the fight has even less luster as the Mexican redhead is no longer viewed as a must-see attraction. In theory, Canelo’s setback to Dmitry Bivol was also a net-loss for Golovkin.
Canelo vs. Bivol had a rematch clause which Canelo initially indicated that he would activate before pulling back to give it more thought. Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn, who has dibs on Canelo’s next fight, favors this alternative and the guess is that we will get it.
As of this writing, no major betting shop has posted odds on this tentative match-up, but all indications are that Bivol would open a small favorite. And although the pundits are in accord, at least for the moment, that Bivol at 175 pounds is too big for Canelo, it’s easy to build a case for the former pound-for-pound king who hasn’t dressed as an underdog since fighting Floyd Mayweather, ancient history, and who would be extra-incentivized in the role of a would-be avenger.
Canelo recently adopted a mainly vegan diet. Sports Illustrated boxing writer Chris Mannix wondered if this may have contributed to Canelo’s substandard effort: “…he just didn’t look as strong in the ring, appearing winded in the middle rounds and unable to match Bivol’s output in the final rounds of the fight.”
If Canelo junks his new diet, Canelo-Bivol II has a ready-made storyline.
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Arne K. Lang’s latest book, titled “George Dixon, Terry McGovern and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910,” will shortly roll off the press. The book, published by McFarland, can be pre-ordered directly from the publisher (https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/clashof-the-little-giants) or via Amazon.
