By: Sean Crose
“It may not turn out like the greatest lightweight fight of all time,” I wrote after the match. “This is not Spinks-Qawi, or Greb-Tunney. However, it was a fight that left the boxing world reeling. Sure enough, WBA heavyweight boxer Dmitry Bivol just beat the great Canelo Alvarez. “Things shouldn’t have turned out this way,” I continued. “Canelo is expected to win a challenging but controllable match before going on to face arch rival Gennady Golovkin in the fall. However, expectations die in boxing. The whole game will be a graveyard of expectations.”
While Canelo did indeed face and overwhelm Golovkin in the third game in September, his spring defeat to Bivol’s gloved hands still resonated at dawn in 2023. Even though Canelo did defeated by Floyd Mayweather in 2013 and received some questionable Decisions to win over Erislandy Lara and Golovkin respectively, the redhead looks like he’s at his absolute prime before making his way to the ring. to ring the bell in front of Bivol on Las Vegas night last May. He previously crushed Caleb Plan and before that Billy Joe Saunders. Good competition will come to Canelo, and that competition will collapse. However, that is not the case with Bivol.
While it is true that Bivol entered the fight with the bigger man naturally, it is also true that the 19-0 Russian had a simple but brilliant plan to deal with the ambitious Canelo. For starters, Bivol used a powerful jab, effectively preventing Canelo from approaching. Bivol also throws in some stinging synergies, making it sometimes seem like Canelo might actually get injured (something fans haven’t seen). In a similar way is the fact that Canelo simply couldn’t bring down his man the way he usually does with opponents. In the end, Bivol was too big, too strong, too sharp and had too good a plan for the legendary Canelo to get the best out of him.
While Canelo 57-1-2 was known to be the judges’ darling, he was unable to convince the judges that night that he had beaten or even drawn with Bivol. The defending champion walked out of the ring that night with the WBA belt still in his possession. What about Canelo? Well, it’s hard to blame a man for failing on an ambitious mission to which he clearly gave his all. The other warriors should be more like him.
