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Canelo Alvarez says he wants to fight a rematch against Dmitry Bivol in May 2025 if he defeats Artur Beterbiev in their undisputed light heavyweight championship clash on October 12th. Alvarez would still need to win his fight against Edgar Berlanga on Saturday night to meet Bivol next May.
(Credit: Ryan Hafey & Rey Del Rio/Premier Boxing Champions)
If Canelo took the fight with Bivol next, it would be one way to get back at David Benavidez, WBC mandatory for light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev’s belt with that organization.
Benavidez is counting on fighting the winner of the Bivol-Beterbiev winner next. Canelo could mess up Benavidez by fighting Bivol, beating him, and then vacating the four belts.
That would fragment them, preventing Benavidez from capturing them all at once like he’s hoping. However, no one expects Benavidez to beat the winner of the Bivol vs. Beterbiev because he looked bang average in his debut at 175 on May 18th, laboring to a highly dubious 12-round unanimous over Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) doesn’t say why he wouldn’t want to fight Artur Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) if he emerges victorious against Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) in their undisputed fight.
It could be that Canelo’s only focus is on avenging his 12-round unanimous decision loss to Bivol on May 7, 2022. All three judges scored the fight identically, 115-113. That was very odd.
They also had Canelo sweeping the first four rounds, and few fans agreed with that. I watched the fight and scored it for Bivol with a wide margin of 120-108. A more realistic reason Canelo wants Bivol is that Beterbiev is a dangerous puncher and would likely knock him out.
That’s not a way that Canelo would want to lose. At least with Bivol, the only thing Canelo has to worry about is losing by decision becaue he’s not a knockout puncher. Bivol is afraid to get hit, and always dashes away when under attack. Beterbiev wouldn’t do that if Canelo attacked him. He would stand his ground and bludgeon him to the canvas, sending him out in an inglorious way.
“When I spoke to Canelo yesterday, he said he wants Dmitry Bivol next, provided, of course, Bivol does beat Beterbiev on October 12th in Riyadh for the undisputed light heavyweight championship,” said Mike Coppinger on X, talking about Canelo Alvarez wanting to fight Dmitry Bivol if he’s victorious over Artur Beterbiev in their clash on October 12th.
For this fight to have a chance of happening, not only must Bivol defeat Beterbiev, but His Excellency Turki Alalshikh must also agree to it. There’s already talk of Bivol and Beteriev fighting an immediate rematch. Even if they don’t, Turki may prefer the winner to fight WBC interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez next. Turki is the one who will decide which fight takes place, not Canelo.
“What’s nice about that fight, if it happens, is that it’s a real departure from Canelo’s last three or four fights. That’s a fight where Canelo is going to be a decided underdog. I thought when he fought [Bivol] in May 2022, that was a 10-2, 9-3 fight at best for Canelo,” said Coppiner.
If the rematch happens, Bivol would be a clear favorite over Canelo, and yeah, it would be a departure from the guys Alvarez has fought in his last four fights. But it’s still unclear whether Bivol will get past Beterbiev on October 12th because he’s looked chinny and skittish in recent fights. Lyndon Arthur had Bivol hurt last December, and he looked timid in his last contest against little-known fringe contender Malik Zinad on June 1st.
“Canelo says, ‘Look, I know I can beat him. I’m a better fighter.’ I said, ‘Your hand was injured, right?’ ‘Not just my hand. Everything was off,’ and you can tell the loss still bothers him,” said Coppinger about Canelo’s defeat to Bivol two years ago.
Canelo’s hand injury isn’t the reason why he lost the fight to Bivol. He was too small for Bivol, and unable to handle the combination punching from the better conditioned light heavyweight champion. Canelo looked exhausted by the third round and was getting hammered by Bivol, who looked like he was fighting in first gear.
“I think for a guy that is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and an all-time great, that’s a real legacy-defining fight. If you can beat a pound-for-pound guy like Bivol, who would be coming off of a win over Beterbiev and would be undisputed champion, Canelo could be undisputed in a second weight. I think that would be huge, and again, no one is going to pick Canelo in that fight,” said Coppinger.
I doubt that Canelo’s true rationale for wanting to fight Bivol is to capture the light heavyweight undisputed championship. The real reason is that he’ll get paid huge money from that fight by His Excellency Turki Alalshikh, and he’ll have a built-in excuse if he loses.
Canelo can blame it on him moving up in weight to 175. Lastly, Canelo can take the fight from under Benavidez’s nose to get sweet revenge.
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