By Jim Calfa: Dmitry Bivol says it was difficult going into his fight with Canelo Alvarez last weekend because everyone was betting on him to win the fight.
Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) says it was just his own self-belief and that of his team that made him think he could defeat the #1 pound-for-pound king Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs).
During the fight, Bivol realized that he could win when he was blocking Canelo’s punches and making him miss. When Bivol saw Canelo missing his shots, he understood that he could pull off the win.
Bivol estimates that Canelo hit him only five times in the fight in which he landed cleanly. The rest of the ones were either shots that didn’t have much impact or were wild misses.
Canelo fought in a similar way as Jean Pascal against Bivol, loading up on his big single punches and failing to connect.
Even when Canelo was targeting Bivol’s body during the times that he was shelled up, he still couldn’t land due to his shots being blocked.
“It was really hard mentally to fight because everybody bet on Canelo. I knew it and my team believed in me. If I believed in me, I should win,” said Dmitry Bivol to Fighthype in reflecting on his victory over Canelo Alvarez last Saturday night.
The reason fans and oddsmakers believed Canelo would defeat Bivol is the easy time he had becoming the undisputed champion at 168 last year.
“I’m the champion, and I told myself these words. I didn’t watch Instagrams or some media stuff, and I just train and prepare against another challenger, not against the king of pound-for-pound,” Bivol continued.
“If I trained not hard, it’s not good, and I wouldn’t have won the fight. All of this. Train hard and smart, and be focused every time. Believe in yourself. All of this helped me.
“I started my sparring at six rounds, and most of my sparring with eight to ten rounds. When I woke up, I would run two miles, sometimes three miles.
“Before, I thought, ‘I can, I’m bigger, stronger, I’m ready, and it’s my time.’ I felt that. During the fight, I felt it more. I saw his punches and focused on blocking his punches on my gloves. Some of his punches he just missed, and it made me more confident.
“He punched me a couple of times, maybe five times, and a couple of punches; it was hard. I got them and tried to focus again and give him punches back.
“I tried to win every round because I knew that if I wanted to win with the judges, I had to win every single round. But I didn’t win every single round, but I tried it.
“The boxing fans excited me to show my boxing skills. He’s a great fighter with good defense and upper body defense. I missed a lot of punches too, but some punches I landed against him,” said Bivol.
