By Dan Ambrose: WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol might sit and wait until his rematch with Canelo Alvarez before he fights this year if the deal is right, according to Eddie Hearn.
Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) is tentatively scheduled to fight on June 17th against a still-to-be-determined opponent, but given that date is only two months away and he still has no opponent, he could wait until September for the Caneelo fight.
Hearn had hoped to match Bivol against #1 WBA Joshua Buatsi, but he opted not to accept the fight. With the Buatsi fight off the table, Bivol has been sitting and waiting but reportedly still training.
Canelo was supposed to fight Bivol in a rematch last September, but the superstar chose to fight Gennadiy Golovkin. Now, Canelo is fighting John Ryder on May 6th.
Not surprisingly, Bivol is exasperated at how Canelo keeps delaying the rematch, and he doesn’t understand him.
“They’d just tell me to be quiet and make the fight. They’re just desperate for the chance of revenge,” said Eddie Hearn to Chris Mannix on Boxing about Canelo Alvarez & his trainer/manager Eddy Reynoso wanting the opportunity to avenge the loss to Dmitry Bivol.
“It sounds like, and this is tea-reading, but Bivol might wait for that fight,” said Chris Mannix.
“There have been conversations with Vadim [Kornilov] this week about Bivol potentially going in June, but at the same time, if the deal is right for him to wait until September [for Canelo rematch], he may do that.
“Last May, he boxed Canelo Alvarez, and then he fought Zurdo Ramirez. I think, ideally, he’d like to have another one, but he’s not going to mess that fight up for himself in September,” Hearn said of Bivol.
“So it all depends on the deal if he waits or not, but for the moment, we have him penciled in for June 17th,” said Hearn.
“Why did Munguia fight become so complicated? It seemed like such a marketable fight,” said Mannix about Bivol vs. Jaime Munguia.
“It never made sense,” said Hearn. “Munguia is a 154-pounder moving to 160. Dmitry is a 175-pounder that just beat Canelo Alvarez. Munguia has never boxed anyone, certainly in recent times, and then he wants to jump up two divisions and fight Dmitry Bivol,” said Hearn.
“You didn’t think he [Munguia] really wanted it,” said Mannix.
“I just thought it was strange,” said Hearn about Munguia wanting to fight Bivol. “If I’m Jaime Munguia, I’m doing everything I can to fight Gennadiy Golovkin. That’s the fight. That’s an unbelievably marketable fight.”
