Dmitry Bivol Needs an Opponent
Regrettably for WBA world light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (16-0, 11 KO’s), he is lacking a dance partner. Although he has an October 12 fight date secured, he has no scheduled foe at the moment. This makes him the odd man out as the only champion in the division without an opponent to fight.
His fellow titlists, WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk (17-0, 14 KO’s) and IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev (14-0, 14 KO’s) are facing one another on October 18. While the last champion in the division, Sergey “The Krusher” Kovalev (34-3-1, 29 KO’s) (WBO) will square off against WBA middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KO’s) on November 2.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
According to Bivol’s manager, Vadim Kornilov, the Russian champion was hoping to secure a fight with New Yorker “Sir” Marcus Browne (23-1, 16 KO’s). That preceded the tricky southpaw suffering a surprising loss to long in the tooth fighter Jean Pascal (34-6-1, 20 KO’s) on August 3. The bout would come to a halt on account of Browne suffering a terrible cut. The Staten Island native lost the WBC silver and interim WBA light heavyweight belts in one fail swoop. The loss also threw Bivol into a temporary void.
“We were waiting for Marcus Browne to win and we were supposed to fight him. I mean we were hoping he’d be the next fight, he’s been the interim champion, basically the mandatory for Dmitry’s belt for about a year. And then, you know, they take this fight and lose. It was disappointing to us to be honest with you. Now we are stuck, and actually it’s been really tough to try and find a real good, sturdy opponent for Bivol.” ~Vadim Kornilov, Dmitry Bivol’s manager
When Browne became a non-factor in terms of his next outing, Bivol would have loved to have fought Kovalev or Alvarez. In fact, his team unsuccessfully attempted to land these fights. With the changing the landscape as it is, Kornilov isn’t hopeful that Bivol will face Alvarez or the Krusher. At least, in the case of the Kovalev, he sees that fight is quickly losing its luster.
“He wanted Sergey Kovalev because he is the biggest name, and now with all that’s happening it will be less and less meaningful to do that fight.” ~Vadim Kornilov, Dmitry Bivol’s manager
FIGHTING FOR ALL THE MARBLES
On the bright side, outside of Kovalev v Alvarez, the belts are on a steady course for consolidation. If this trend maintains its trajectory, regardless of who the opponent is, in the next year or so Bivol will hope to fight for all the belts. Yet, similar to Team Bivol, at the moment we’re all going to have to play the waiting game and see what unfolds next!
“But with the way things are going and the way things are playing out, in the next year or two, there is probably going to be Bivol fighting somebody for all the belts. That’s where it’s kind of going towards because we’ll have a Beteriev/Gvozdyk winner, you know, we’ll have a Kovalev/Canelo winner and then probably somebody is going to fight somebody and then there will be a fight for a unified champion, you know for undisputed champion.” ~Vadim Kornilov, Dmitry Bivol’s manager
By: Bakari Simpson
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