Canelo Alvarez says he’ll be ready to fight in May following his successful hand surgery, saying he wants a rematch against Dmitry Bivol.
The former four-division world champion believes his left hand will be ready to face WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) in May. Canelo says he’s doing rehab on his hand, and things are going well.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn hopes Bivol will take the rematch with Alvarez, but it’s still unclear if he will. Bivol says he wants a fight against IBF, WBC & WBO light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev for the undisputed championship.
If Beterbiev isn’t available, given that he’s scheduled to face Anthony Yarde in early 2023, Bivol will likely take the rematch with Canelo. Hearn says he’d like to see Bivol drop to 168 to challenge Canelo for his four belts at super middleweight.
Bivol dominated Canelo from start to finish last May, beating him soundly by a 12-round decision that appeared much more one-sided than the 115-113 x 3 scores the judges turned in for the contest.
Canelo says he’s studied his fight with Bivol and feels that he didn’t train the right way to defeat him. The Mexican star feels that he needed a different approach than the one he utilized, given that he was fighting in the 175-lb weight class against a larger opponent.
“I think I’ll be ready for May again,” Canelo Alvarez said to Bet365.mx on his rematch with Dmitry Bivol.
“It was very difficult because no one is ready to lose, but I have seen the fight,” said Canelo. “I had a very competitive fight based on the limitations I had [with] my hand, my shoulder.”
Where Canelo went wrong was his decision to throw single shots, not throwing combinations, and spending too much time defending on the ropes. Another problem that Canelo had was in his conditioning.
Alvarez looked fatigued after three rounds and incapable of keeping up with the pace that Bivol set. Canelo, 32, looked exhausted after the third round, and he couldn’t muster enough strength to mount a sustained attack.
In contrast, Bivol appeared as fresh in the later rounds as he had at the start of the fight and could have done a lot of damage to Canelo if he’d switched to another gear.
“The first half of the fight, I did very well and then came to the burden because we did not train as we should be, especially in a larger division where you must be carrying more,” said Canelo.
In Canelo’s recent fight against Gennadiy Golovkin on September 17th, he showed the same poor stamina and flawed fighting style that he’d used against Bivol.
You would think that if Canelo understood what he did wrong against Bivol, he would have fixed the problems for his match against GGG, but he didn’t.
“It is what we will look for, revenge. I lost trying to make history in another division, complicated, for me, he is number one in the 175-pound division,” said Canelo about his desire for a second fight against his conqueror Bivol.
