Canelo Denied Adding Another Championship Belt At T-Mobile Arena Saturday
By Cassandra Cousineau of LVSportsBiz.com
Sometimes it’s your night, and sometimes it isn’t. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fell short in his quest to capture another championship belt at T-Mobile Arena Saturday night, losing to unbeaten WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.
Alvarez, the unified super middleweight champion, traveled up to light heavyweight for just the second time in his career. Bivol, an undefeated longtime belt holder at 175 pounds, controlled the fight early, frustrating the Mexican pound-for-pound star.
“I’m sorry I ruined your plans for Golovkin, maybe,” Bivol said. “Congrats to him, he’s a great champion and I respect him. But if you don’t believe in yourself, what do you do? You won’t achieve anything. I believe and my team believes.”
Bivol was referring to the planned trilogy fight between Canelo and Gennady Golovkin slated for Sept. 17. Instead, Alvarez said he plans to exercise his contractual right to an immediate rematch.
“It doesn’t end like this,” Alvarez said.
Outworking Alvarez for most of the fight, Bivol won by scores of 115-113, 115-113 and 115-113. With the exception of a hard uppercut in the fourth, Canelo never settled in.
“He’s a great champion,” Alvarez said. “Sometimes in boxing, you win and sometimes you lose. I have no excuses. He won the fight.”
Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs), a four-division champion, landed a career-low 84 punches overall overall 12 rounds as Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) relied on his defense and accurate punching to pull the upset via unanimous decision inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Alvarez, whose previous lone defeat came against Floyd Mayweather in 2013, connected on just 17 percent of his punches against Bivol and was outlanded by a margin of 152 to 84, according to CompuBox.
Almost all of the arena’s 17,000 seats were occupied by a heavily pro- Canelo crowd.
As for what’s next for the biggest draw in boxing, Alvarez will opt to invoke his rematch clause. To which Bivol immediately responded, “No problem.”
PSA
