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Philippines, 23 Mar 2026 |
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Canelo-Bivol (Fight Analysis) By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Sat, 07 May 2022  Canelo Alvarez (L) and Dimitry Bivol (R) at Friday's weighin in Las Vegas. Tomorrow night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Undisputed Super middleweight Champion (168lbs) Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-1-2, 39KOs) once again ventures into the Light heavyweight (175lbs) division in search of more glory to what no doubt will be a trip to the boxing hall of fame when he finally retires. The last time Canelo fought at Light heavyweight was when he fought Sergey Kovalev for the WBO light heavyweight title back in November 2019. Contractually, there was a rehydration clause for a second weigh-in the night of that fight where both fighters could not hydrate no more than 10lbs over the 175lbs fight limit. Canelo stopped Kovalev to win the fight and the WBO title in 11 rounds. Many observers felt the rehydration clause hurt Kovalev by weakening him. Canelo will now face WBA 175lbs champion Dimtry Bivol (19-0, 11KOs). Canelo has more experience, more championship fights, more titles, fought better opponents, is quicker, and arguably has better ring intelligence. Bivol’s boxing resume does not compare to Canelo’s but he has proven that he is a good champion. Bivol became the WBA interim light heavyweight champion in his 7th professional fight. He received full status recognition when he defeated the durable Sullivan Barrera in his 13 professional fight. There is a saying in boxing that, “a good big man will beat a small good man”. Bivol has the physical advantages over Canelo. Let’s see what both fighters have to do in order to be victorious. Canelo no doubt has to do what he can to physically compensate so Bivol does not overpower him due to his size. Pictures generally don’t lie. Canelo and Bivol (6ft) side by side we all see Bivol is bigger, but so was Callum Smith (height 6’3) to Canelo (5’7½). Canelo is reportedly on a vegan diet and appears to have put on muscle. Hopefully he has not sacrificed speed for the muscle he has put on his frame. Heavily muscled fighters tend to have a problem with stamina in the later rounds. Hopefully that will not be the case as well. Canelo has to fight his fight. He has to box, use his speed combinations, make punches count, and dictates the tempo of the fight. He must be first to land punches and make them count. He has to use good defense to make the bigger man miss, waste, punches, and tire himself out so Canelo can get a late round stoppage. What does Bivol have to do to defeat Canelo? Bivol has to have a great jab tomorrow night. Bivol must establish the jab from the sound of the opening bell. His jab must disturb Canelo’s rhythm. He must set up Canelo for punches and create opportunities to land his punches. Bivol must render Canelo ineffective. He must make Canelo pay whenever Canelo attacks so the smaller man is cautious of getting hurt or knocked out. The winner of this fight will be the fighter who fights their fight by imposing their will on the other and executing the game plan they need to earn a victor. This writer picks Canelo by a close split decision victory. 7-5 rounds for Canelo by Split decision. Boxing Notes Recent reports from boxing news outlets are that Canelo is interested in fight unified champion welterweight champion Errol Spence, not at a catch weight but at 168lbs. It’s clear Errol Spence wants the “Big Fights”. He secured a “Big Fight” with Manny Pacquiao only to see that fight slip away because he was diagnosed with a detached retina. If Spence can defeat WBO welterweight champion Terrance Crawford, who is undefeated, then a fight between Canelo vs Spence is bigger than a fight between Canelo vs Charlo or Canelo-Benavidez. Who can blame Spence when Caleb Plant pocketed a reported 10million dollars for a Canelo fight. Spence must fight Crawford to improve his ever growing profile and defeating Crawford will increase Spence’s negotiating power in Canelo negotiations…If Terrance Crawford defeats Errol Spence look for him to sign a similar fight deal with a major network like Mayweather did when he signed a 6 fight $200,000,000 deal. Believe this Writer when I say Crawford, if he signs a Mayweather type deal will, earn every penny of that contract because he will have to fight the likes of Jaron Ennis, Vergil Ortiz, winner of Charlo vs Castano, Tim Tszyu, and Sebastian Fundoro. Let see what happens…Shakur Stevenson may be the best junior lightweight (130lbs) and lightweight (135lbs). After 19 professional fights he has won 3 world titles in two weight classes. He wants to fight Vasyl Lomachenko, but he is unavailable due to the war between Ukraine and Russia. It will be interesting to see if the winner of unified world lightweight title Kambosos (champion) vs Haney will fight Shakur is only 24 and is making a case for P4P. If Shakur remains motivated who knows how many great fights he will give us. Contact writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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