Eddie Hearn is negotiating the Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol rematch for the Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend in May 2023.
According to Hearn, there’s no possibility the superstar Canelo won’t fight Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) again because he wants the rematch.
In the meantime, the 12 months will allow the Bivol fight time to marinate slowly before the two stars meet in May 2023 in the revenge match for the Mexican star.
Unfortunately, Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) has a full plate of fights for the remainder of 2022, making it undoable for him to face Bivol in the rematch this year.
Canelo, 31, is already under contract to fight Gennadiy Golovkin in a trilogy fight on September 17th, and after that, he’ll be fighting in December against possibly John Ryder.
“We spoke to Bivol and his team. We’re working on the rematch for Cinco de Mayo next year. There’s no way he [Canelo] won’t take that fight,” said Eddie Hearn to the DAZNBoxing
Show.
So there it is. Canelo will be taking the rematch with Bivol, but it won’t be until he faces the famous Kazakh star Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KOs) in September and Ryder in December.
Boxing fans will likely think Canelo is ducking the Bivol fight, but that’s not the case. He has no choice but to fight Golovkin because the popular fighter is getting older at 40, and DAZN & the fans have waited for four years for this fight to occur.
Golovkin’s last fight against Ryota Murata on April 9th showed how urgent it is for Canelo to fight him now. That match showed how much Golovkin has lost from his game due to his age and the wear & tear of an extended 16-year professional career.
You can argue that the 12 months will allow Canelo to work on different game areas that he’ll need to have a fighting chance of defeating Bivol in the rematch in May 2023.
Areas Canelo needs to improve for Bivol rematch
- Conditioning
- Coach – new trainer or an addition
- Jabbing
- Foot speed
- Staying off the ropes
- Mobility
Bivol exposed Canelo’s lack of basic fundamentals in their fight, showing the many knowledge gaps in his game.
For some boxing fans, it was shocking to see how superior Bivol was in terms of his fundamentals, and showed that Canelo hasn’t been taught the things that were needed for him to defeat a technical fighter.
Canelo learned much of his game from his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, but he needed a lot more than that for hi to compete with a high-tech fighter like Bivol.
It might not be a bad idea for Canelo to add an Eastern European coach to his team like Anatoliy Lomachenko that can teach him how to box properly because he’s learned enough from his current trainer Eddy Reynoso to defeat a fighter of Bivol’s class.
