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The next six weeks will see Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol head in vastly different directions.
Whether their roads will once again intersect could depend on the performances in their next respective outings.
Guadalajara’s Alvarez (57-2-2, 39KOs) will face longtime rival Gennadiy ‘GGG’ Golovkin in their long-discussed trilogy clash this Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The same venue hosted their questionable split decision draw in September 2017 and a less controversial but still disputed majority decision win in favor of Alvarez in their September 2018 rematch.
The belief heading into the third fight is that Guadalajara’s Alvarez—who defends his undisputed super middleweight championship—will claim a far more decisive victory this time around. However, he enters the fight just four months removed from a twelve-round, unanimous decision loss on May 7 at this very location to Bivol (20-0, 11KOs), whose team has insisted that a second straight loss by Alvarez will leave their own series at one-and-done.
“If Canelo loses Golovkin, then we’re not fighting in the rematch with him either,” Vadim Kornilov, Bivol’s manager, told BoxingScene.com and a small group of reporters while otherwise discussing Bivol’s upcoming WBA light heavyweight title defense against Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez. “I heard him say that he’s not fighting Bivol if he lost to Ramirez. If [Canelo] lost to Golovkin, we’re not fighting Golovkin.”
Talks of a second Bivol-Alvarez fight came about in the wake of Bivol taking down the sport’s pound-for-pound and box-office king, as their May 7 DAZN Pay-Per-View headliner carried a rematch clause. Alvarez was already committed to a third fight with Golovkin (42-1-1, 37KOs) heading into the fight, making any decision on the matter a moot point as he returns to super middleweight while Bivol honors his mandatory title defense obligations.
Alvarez was recently quoted in a FightHype.com interview claiming that a Bivol rematch would be dead in the water if the unbeaten champ were to lose to Ramirez (44-0, 30KOs)—a 31-year-old southpaw from Mazatlan, Mexico—in their November 5 clash in Abu Dhabi. Alvarez is rooting for his countryman to prevail in the light heavyweight title fight that will air on DAZN, while his latest opponent has at least one super fan in his proverbial corner.
Bivol remains noncommittal on how the Alvarez-Golovkin trilogy will play out, beyond not openly rooting for an Alvarez win for the sake of another big payday in his own career.
“I don’t know, I don’t like to do predictions. But we support Triple G,” admitted Bivol, who will celebrate his fifth-year anniversary as a major title on the eve of his title defense against Ramirez.
That said, wins by both Alvarez and Bivol could very well set up big business for the 31-year-old from Saint Petersburg by way of Kyrgyzstan. However, such a fight will come on terms far beyond what Bivol accepted for their meeting earlier this year.
“There is no obligation for the rematch to occur,” insisted Kornilov. “We can make it happen. We have an agreement that if the fight can be made, we will make it. Our partnership with Matchroom [Boxing], we can always make it work. It’s a big money fight.
“But if he lost to Golovkin, it’s not that big of a fight anymore and we can just go fight somebody else.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox