Canelo Alvarez may find himself in a position where he’ll need to rally from a serious deficit next Saturday night against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol on May 7th.
Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs) has a much higher work rate than Canelo, and he’s likely to outwork him in a dramatic fashion next Saturday night in their headliner on DAZN PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn notes that Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs) fell behind in recent fights against Billy Joe Saunders, and also Caleb Plant because of his low punch output.
Fortunately for Canelo, his power bailed him out in both fights, allowing him to take the judges out of the equation.
It might not be so simple for Canelo to do that against the 175-pounder Bivol, as he takes an excellent shot, and he’s stood up against bigger punchers than him.
If Joe Smith Jr. and Craig Richards couldn’t KO Bivol, then there’s little chance Canelo will do so. Canelo’s low work makes it even less likely that he’ll be able to stop Bivol.
“I just feel that it’s technically, a difficult fight because, with Canelo Alvarez, it’s not like his work rate is the key,” said Eddie Hearn to DAZN Boxing.
“We’ve seen with [Billy Joe] Saunders and we’ve seen against [Caleb] Plant, he’s winning rounds, but he breaks you down mentally with his feet and obviously with his power and his smart mind.
“I just feel that he may have to come from behind in this fight. I feel that Bivol will start well, and start sharp. If you look at the [Sergey] Kovalev fight, he [Canelo] was behind in that fight, and he knocked him out in the 11th round,” said Hearn.
“There’s never any panic, is there?” said Darren Barker about Canelo.
Billy Joe Saunders ran out of gas against Canelo, and he made the amateurish mistake of leaning forward with both hands down by his side.
That’s an amateurish flaw that Saunders had in his game for years, but he never fought anyone good enough to take advantage of that until he fought Canelo.
“That’s the amazing thing,” said Hearn. “I was watching him fight Saunders, but before you know it, you could be five, six, or seven rounds down against Saunders.
“He [Canelo] didn’t care if he was down five or six. He wasn’t but I think it was a lot closer than the scorecards. There was never any panic. It wasn’t like, ‘We’re in round six or seven, you better.’ It was, ‘It’s coming, it’s coming.’
“He’s going to counterpunch him, but anything can happen in boxing,” said Andy Ruiz Jr. to ESNEWS about Canelo being able to counter the bigger fighter Bivol.
“It only takes one punch to change the game. He’s [Canelo] moving up in weight.
“This fight is interesting as well, but I think Canelo. It’s going to be an easy fight, easy money,” said Ruiz, picking Canelo to defeat Bivol.
