Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, is a collector of championship belts and for most analysts the best fighter of the moment, will go after one more belt, the light heavyweight belt (175 pounds, 79.386 kilos) of the World Boxing Association, held by undefeated Dmitry Bivol, this Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, whose capacity for 20 thousand people and will be at full capacity as tickets were sold out since the first days with prices ranging between $160, $580 and $9 thousand dollars.
The 31-year-old Aztec fighter, winner by KO in 39 of 60 fights, with 2 draws and only one defeat by MD against Floyd Mayweather on 9-14-2013 (cards of 117-111, 116-112 and 114-114), is the current undisputed super middleweight champion and has also reigned at super welterweight and middleweight, in addition to at 175 pounds, a belt he won on November 2, 2019 against Sergei Kovalev by DU in the WBO version.
His opponent on Saturday, Bivol, also 31, is undefeated in 19 professional fights of which he has won 13 before the limit, with no losses or draws. Even though Bivol has a very short record of only 8, which contrasts with the Aztec’s 17, he cannot be described as inexperienced because he fought 283 times in amateur with a record of 268 wins and only 15 losses. He learned to box at the age of 6.
Alvarez, who started in the professional ranks when he was only 14 years old, in October 2005 with a 4 round KO against Abraham Gonzalez, for a modest purse of $40 of which he received half, will now earn about $53 million, the third part of what Matchroom Boxing, the promoter of the English Eddie Hearn, will pay him for 3 fights, the second of them in September that will complete the trilogy against the Kazakh Gennady Golovkin (one won by the Mexican, with a draw) and a third against an opponent yet to be determined.
The “Canelo” will go up on Saturday as a favorite against Bivol, who has in his favor a height of 10 centimeters more than the Jalisco (1.83 by 1.73) with a reach of 183 by 179. However, it is believed that these relative advantages will not be enough to achieve his goal of stopping and defeating the “manito”, who is also at a disadvantage with respect to weight because it is presumed that Bivol will be in the ring with several kilos more.
Experts assume that the fight will be characterized by an approach of contrasts on both sides: Bivol will certainly go on the attack as he usually does, with his good and accurate jab in front as a weapon of containment and his shots from both hands, without wasting punches, while “Canelo”, is expected to counter-punch to contain him and score the necessary points in each round with the KO as an objective, as he has done in his most recent engagements.
Let’s conclude with a “naive” question and the corresponding answer: Will the old boxing saying that “The big good guy beats the little good guy” be true this time, as it has been many times in the past?
The answer, which is nothing more than our opinion about the possible outcome: in this case the big good guy does not seem to be good enough to beat the little good guy. With the addition of the remembrance of a very old biblical passage and episode: Las Vegas must be the struggle of David against Goliath. There is no one who does not know who ended up with his arm raised high.
