By Allan Fox: Unbeaten WBA interim light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (11-0, 9 KOs) will be swooping in to pick up Badou Jack’s recently vacated WBA World light heavyweight title on November 4 against #11 WBA Trent Broadhurst (20-1, 12 KOs) in the maint event on HBO World Championship Boxing in Monaco, according to RingTV.com.
The fact that HBO is televising a little-known fighter like the 26-year-old Bivol in the main event against another obscure contender in Broadhurst suggests that the network believes they’ve got another Golovkin like talent in the Russian fighter. Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport will be promoting the November 4 card. There’s been talk that Bivol could sign with Hearn. However, it’s still unclear if that’ll happen. The fact that HBO is taking an interest in Bivol shows what kind of talent he is. Hearn might be able to open some doors for Bivol with his high powered promotional company.
Up until this week, Bivol was poised to challenger Badou Jack for the WBA 175 lb. title. They had a purse bid scheduled for Monday, September 25. The fight between them would then be scheduled shortly after that. But for some unknown reason, Jack suddenly vacated his WBA title without any explanation. It’s a move that boxing fans are still trying to figure out, as Jack would have been better off keeping his WBA title, fighting Bivol, and then using the title to get a unification fight against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson.
By vacating his WBA belt, it gives the impression to some that Jack wanted no part of fighting the undefeated Bivol, who is a major talent with KO power in either hand. Bivol is very heavy handed, and he appears to have a good future ahead of him in the 175-lb. division.
Thus far, Bivol has previously fought on HBO and Showtime Boxing, with knockout wins over Cedric Agnew and Samuel Clarkson. Bivol looked very good in both fights. He seems to be getting better with each fight.
The Australian Broadhurst, 29, has done very little during his career as far as beating high level opposition. Broadhurst’s best wins have come against 43-year-old Nader Hamdan, who he beat by a 3rd round TKO on February 3, Shawn Miller, Afif Belghecham and Michal Ludwiczak. The World Boxing Association has Broadhurst ranked in their No.11 spot for a reason. It’s hard to understand what they see in him based on the level of opposition he’s faced.
Broadhurst likes to mix it up, so it should be entertaining to see how long he can stand up to the huge power shots from Bivol on November 4. Unless Broadhust changes his fighting style, he’s not likely to last long against Bivol. Broadhurst was stopped in the 5th round by high level journeyman Robert Berridge on October 28, 2011. This is the same Berridge that Bivol recently knocked out in the 4th round on February 23 of this year. That’s obviously bad news for the boxing fans that Bivol is fighting a guy that was knocked out by one of his recent KO victims. It tells me that Bivol should be able to take care of Broadhurst quickly on November 4.
There are a lot of contenders ranked above Broadhurst that would seemingly be far better opponents for Bivol to fight if they were available and interested in taking the fight.
Here are the WBA’s top 15 contenders at 175:
1. Dmitry Bivol
2. Sullivan Barrera
3. Oleksandr Gvozdyk
4. Karo Murat
5. Sergey Kovalev
6. Shefat Isufi
7. Joe Smith Jr.
8. Felix Valera
9. Marcus Browne
10. Nathan Cleverly
11. Trent Broadhurst
12. Mike Lee
13. Juergen Braehmer
14. Blake Caparello
15. Egor Mekhontsev
Broadhurst is more of a showcase fight for Bivol than someone that you would normally see challenging for a vacant title. Hopefully this turns out to be an exciting fight, but I have my doubts. Bivol is likely going to destroy Broadhurst.
Badou Jack must have some plan for a big fight for him to vacate his WBA title so quickly after beating Nathan Cleverly to capture the WBA title on August 26. It’s not easy for fighters to win world titles at 175. It’s hard just to get a world title fight to begin with. For Jack to give up his WBA title without a fight by facing Bivol, it makes you wonder whether he’s got a big money fight planned against someone like Kovalev.