By Sean Jones: Mike Tyson believes that the main reason for Canelo Alvarez’s defeat against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol last Saturday night was his failure to utilize his jab when coming forward.
Tyson felt that if Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) had used his jab effectively, it would have made Bivol hesitant to come forward to throw his combination punches.
Indeed, Canelo showed no interest in throwing jabs, which isn’t new for him. He’s picked up many bad habits over the last four years, fighting flawed champions like Rocky Fielding, Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, Danny Jacobs, Callum Smith, and Sergey Kovalev.
Like we’ve seen in Canelo’s recent fights, he was plodding forward, throwing power punches exclusively, and banking on his ability to score a come from behind knockout against Bivol.
You can argue that Canelo’s technical boxing skills have been deteriorating rapidly since his rematch with Gennady Golvokin in 2018.
Facing weak paper champions has made Canelo sloppy & lazy, choosing to ignore his jabs in favor of the crowd & judge-pleasing power shots.
“If Canelo were using his jab effectively, hard, the guy [Dmitry Bivol] wouldn’t have been able to come in because he wasn’t worried about Canelo’s jab,” said Mike Tyson on social media about how Canelo could have beaten Bivol.
Canelo’s lack of reach was one reason he may have chosen not to throw jabs because Bivol was doing an excellent job of moving out of range.
The sloppiness on defense that we saw from Gennadiy Golovkin in his two fights with Canelo, we didn’t see from Bivol.
When Bivol did get hit by one of Canelo’s hard shots, he stayed composed and didn’t react with fear or embarrassment that may have held Golovkin back. Bivol stuck with his battle plan and methodically outboxed Canelo.
“So he got more aggressive and got braver,” Tyson said about Bivol. “If you’re not jabbing, he has no defense. If he’s not going to jab, the guy is going to walk right in on him as he did.
“In the next fight, use your jab, a different fight. When he’s jabbing, Canelo should be moving & slipping the jab for the final uppercut. If he was slipping the jab, the guy wouldn’t throw the combination.
“I believe if he used his jab, it would have been a different fight,” said Tyson.
“Canelo’s punches wouldn’t hurt Bivol as long as he was blocking,” said trainer Joel Diaz to Behind The Gloves. “He [Canelo] was getting tired and was throwing one and two overhand rights, left hooks, and Dmitry was in control.
“That’s a size difference. His management and his team, everybody is going to have a plan for his next step. Dmitry Bivol can fight anybody at 175 because he’s got the power; he’s got the confidence.
“Now that he’s beaten the best fighter at the moment, pound-for-pound in Canelo Alvarez his confidence is high. It doesn’t matter, anybody in the light heavyweight division,” said Diaz.
