Following his defeat to Russian boxer Dmitry Bivol, British boxing promoter Eddie Hearn has questioned Canelo Alvarez’s future at a higher weight division.
Dmitry Bivol outclassed Canelo Alvarez in an intense boxing match, despite the fact that the latter was regarded the finest pound-for-pound boxer in the world prior to the fight as he moved up from super middleweight to light heavyweight.
“It’s easy to talk about it after the fight, isn’t it?” said Hearn In an interview with SB Nation’s ‘Bad Left Hook,’ dismissing suggestions that Canelo’s defeat was due to his weight gain.
“But no one was saying it’s a bridge too far before. Many boxing fans thought this would be a tough battle, and some even picked Dmitry Bivol, but we can’t say it was a “bridge too far” because if we had this talk (before the fight), we would have said, “Oh, he’s a heavy favorite,” and he was.”
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Hearn also did not want to deflect from Bivol’s triumph by focusing too much on what Canelo did wrong throughout the fight.
“We don’t know if it was a mix of a little tiredness from Saul, the weight, I don’t know, did he have a good camp? I don’t know,” Hearn stated.
“But let us not underestimate Dmitry Bivol’s genius. He was perfect in every way. And I don’t think you’d look at him after the wins over Craig Richards and Lenin Castillo and think he put on a performance like that against the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter.”
After the defeat, Hearn also talked about his upcoming fight with Eddy Reynoso and his plans for further fights in 2022.
“It’s almost as if Saul wants to put himself at a disadvantage in order to tackle the most difficult challenges and that may typically backfire,” he conceded.
“So now we’re going to have to sit down with Eddy [Reynoso] and say, ‘We want to activate the rematch or we want to go for the 168-pound bout, but we don’t see him not wanting to avenge that defeat.”
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