By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez is coming into tonight’s fight to challenge unbeaten defensive artist Dmitry Bivol for his WBA light heavyweight title at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
From outward appearances, Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs) is viewed by casual & even some hardcore boxing fans as another notch for Canelo to add to his resume, as he’s looked close to unbeatable since his rematch with Gennadiy Golovkin.
Interestingly, the fans are so used to Canelo winning that they see this as a rubber stamp fight, believing that Bivol has no shot at getting the victory.
The fans have become spoiled by Canelo’s successes, believing him to be unbeatable rather than a fighter that looked human in many of his recent fights.
Unfortunately, Canelo’s overconfidence due to wins over beatable belt holders may have done something to his mind, making him believe he’s a water walker.
It’s fair to say that Canelo has become drunk on power, causing him to have the mistaken belief that he can move up to 175 and rip the WBA belt away from the talented Russian Bivol tonight.
This is what happens to people when they get too much success against weak opposition. They end up marching into a situation where they face an overwhelming talent with superior size and ability.
We may see Canelo’s downfall tonight, but he’ll have a built-in excuse due to him going up in weight to 175.
Canelo’s recent wins over belt-holders:
Caleb Plant
Billy Joe Saunders
Callum Smith
Danny Jacobs
Rocky Fielding
Sergey Kovalev
Those guys would likely lose to even welterweights Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford, so it’s challenging to give Canelo much credit for beating those paper champions.
We’ve seen how easy victories in sports & even in war can warp a person’s brain, making them believe that they can’t lose, no matter the circumstances. Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs) could be yet another example of a person biting off more than he can chew tonight, marching into an ambush that will lead to him being obliterated by that bigger, faster, and better skilled Bivol.
“This fight isn’t about who is bigger, but who can use his skills and who’s skills are better,” said Bivol to DAZN Boxing Show. “I will be ready.
“When I was an amateur and came to other cities to fight other fighters, the whole crowd was against me,” Bivol said when asked how he’ll deal with fighting in front of a predominately pro-Canelo crowd tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. “I have experience for this stuff.”
Canelo – Bivol undercard
Scott Alexander vs. Zhilei Zhang
Montana Love vs. Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela
Shakhram Giyasov vs. Christian Gomez
Joselito Velazquez vs. Jose Soto
Alexis Espino vs. Aaron Silva
Marc Castro vs. Pedro Vincente Scharbaai
Elnur Abduraimov vs. Manuel Correa
Fernando Angel Molina vs. Ricardo Valdovinos
