Notebook: Canelo, Bivol both under 175-pound limit during festive weigh-in
Golden Boy sets Zurdo-Boesel undercard; Pitch Boxing appearance; Taylor-Serrano afterglow; Quick hits; Show & tell
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LAS VEGAS — As they have been throughout the promotion, pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol were all business at their weigh-in before thousands of mostly Canelo fans on a steaming hot Friday afternoon in front of T-Mobile Arena.
Both appeared to be in immaculate condition as they both came in under the 175-pound limit for their showdown, which will take place inside the arena on Saturday (DAZN PPV and PPV.com, 8 p.m. ET).
Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs), 31, of Russia, who will defend his WBA light heavyweight title for the ninth time, weighed in first and was 174.6 pounds.
Alvarez was next up and was 174.4 pounds.
Then they faced off with stone faces and not even a hint of concern they might engage in any trash talk or pushing and shoving.
“First time I see a lot of Mexican fans against me,” Bivol said moments later as the crowd chanted, “Mexico! Mexico!”
“I’m here listening to the crowd,” Bivol continued. “This is my dream. All my life I am in boxing and I won many times and why shouldn’t I win this time? I am focused only on the fight. Only making a great fight for people, for boxing fans. I don’t think about what will be after the fight, what will be on May 8. I don’t have any plans. I only have plans on the fight. I will try to make a great fight.”
Bivol is the underdog against Alvarez, the undisputed super middleweight champion and boxing’s biggest star, who is returning to the light heavyweight division seeking to win a world title there for the second time.
In Alvarez’s only other light heavyweight fight, he brutally knocked out Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round in November 2019 to win the WBO title he later vacated. Alvarez weighed 174.5 pounds for that fight.
Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs), 31, looked out at the sea of his adorning fans and said how happy he was to be fighting on Cinco de Mayo weekend, a traditional date for his fights.
“I feel proud to represent my country this weekend. I feel very excited,” Alvarez said.
Bivol is viewed my most as his toughest challenge since he left the middleweight division in 2019.
“I like this kind of challenge. Expect everything from me, like always,” Alvarez said. “I’m gonna try my best and do my best in the ring and, of course, we’re gonna win. (My fans) make me feel so happy, motivated, everything. Viva Mexico! I am so happy.”
Weights for the pay-per-view undercard bouts: Montana Love 140, Gabriel Valenzuela 138.6; Shakhram Giyasov 146.6, Christian Gomez 146; Marc Castro 134.8, Pedro Vicente 134.8; Zhang Zhilei 276.2, Scott Alexander 222.6.
Weights for the preliminary bouts on the free DAZN stream: Joselito Velazquez 112.4, Jose Soto 113.8; Alexis Espino 163.6, Aaron Silva 164.4; Elnur Abduraimov 129.6, Manuel Correa 128.6; Fernando Angel Molina 139.6, Ricardo Valdovinos 139.4.
Pitch Boxing appearance
It was the middle of the night in Las Vegas — and I was still awake — when my longtime pal Gareth Davies from England messaged me to see if I’d chop it up with him for his Pitch Boxing YouTube show. I said let’s do it right now and we did. We discussed Canelo-Bivol in depth and as well as Shakur Stevenson’s brilliant performance against Oscar Valdez and Katie Taylor’s riveting victory over Amanda Serrano. Check it out here:
Zurdo-Boesel undercard
Golden Boy has rounded out the undercard of its card on May 14 (DAZN) at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
It will include the return of Diego De La Hoya (22-1, 10 KOs), a first cousin of Oscar De La Hoya, in a 10-round all-Mexican featherweight fight against Jose Gonzalez (23-9-1, 13 KOs). The fight will be De La Hoya’s first since December 2019 as he moves up one weight class.
“I am anxious and excited to get back in the ring and I look forward to bigger and better opportunities after this fight,” De La Hoya said. “It’s been a while since my last fight, but you’ll see a motivated and determined DDLH come May 14.”
Also on the stream: John “Scrappy” Ramirez (9-0, 7 KOs), of Los Angeles, will face Argentina’s Carlos Sardinez (16-5, 2 KOs) in an eight-round junior bantamweight fight.
Light heavyweight contender Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (43-0, 29 KOs), a 30-year-old southpaw from Mexico, will face Dominic Boesel (32-2, 12 KOs), 32, of Germany, a former WBA interim titlist, in the main event.
Exciting Mexican lightweight William Zepeda (25-0, 23 KOs), a 25-year-old southpaw, will defend his regional belt against former junior lightweight titlist Rene Alvarado (32-11, 21 KOs), 33, of Nicaragua, in the previously announced 10-round co-feature.
“Zepeda versus Alvarado will be the fight of the night,” Zepeda said. “We both have come-forward styles that the fans will enjoy.”
Said Alvarado: “Zepeda is a strong fighter. A victory over him will invigorate my career. Those that know me and know my style, know that I am the type of fighter that brings it, and May 14 will not be the exception.”
Taylor-Serrano afterglow
The historic and sensational fight between undisputed women’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor and seven-division titlist Amanda Serrano last Saturday night before 19,187 at sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York, still has people talking a week later.
Taylor (21-0, 6 KOs), 35, of Ireland, nearly got knocked out in the fifth round but survived and rallied to win an action-packed split decision and retain her title against Serrano (42-2-1, 30 KOs), 33, a Brooklyn-based Puerto Rican.
The women, who could meet in a rematch later in the year, are proud of the show they put on.
“Everyone was talking about this fight being the biggest in women’s boxing history, but I think it actually exceeded everything that people were talking about,” Taylor said. “This was a special, special moment. I think that both myself and Amanda have broken down so many barriers in the last few years in our sport. I love my sport and I want to keep making history.”
Serrano thought she won the fight, as did many, but she isn’t complaining.
“We won. We won for equality. We won for fair pay,” said Serrano, who, like Taylor, earned the first seven-figure paydays in women’s boxing history. “We won for boxing. We won for women. We won for young girls. So I raise my hand as a champion, no matter what the outcome of one fight was.”
DAZN was thrilled with the viewership, which it said exceeded 1.5 million streams worldwide.
“Taylor versus Serrano was a historic night for boxing, for women's sport, and for DAZN,” said DAZN executive vice president Joe Markowski. “It was the highest viewership for a female-headlined fight this century, if not ever. The promotion as a whole was a watershed moment that further catapulted women’s boxing into the mainstream. We look forward to proudly promoting and broadcasting many more spectacular events like it on DAZN in the future.”
Quick hits
England’s Paul Butler (34-2, 15 KOs) was happy to be elevated by the WBO from interim bantamweight titlist to full titlist days after outpointing Jonas Sultan, a last-minute replacement for the now-stripped John Riel Casimero, on April 22. “I already knew I was a two-time world bantamweight champion but to have it officially confirmed by the WBO is a great feeling,” Butler said. “I produced the best performance of my career in beating Jonas Sultan and Casimero will have watched that display and realized he was seriously underestimating me. Had Casimero not been pulled out of the fight, the result would have been the same. Now, with the WBO belt around my waist, I’m ready to secure some huge fights. I will be watching the outcome of (the June 7 three-belt unification rematch between Nonito) Donaire versus (Naoya) Inoue with interest.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is looking for a quality opponent to face welterweight Conor Benn (21-0, 14 KOs), 25, of England, in his next fight this summer and he told Fight Freaks Unite he has been in touch with Top Rank to gauge its interest in matching former unified junior welterweight titleholder Jose Ramirez with Benn in a fight that would be on a Matchroom card on DAZN. Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti confirmed that he and Hearn discussed it and that Top Rank has interest in the fight and asked for Hearn to send a proposal outlining the terms and when the fight would be so they can also discuss it with Ramirez (27-1, 17 KOs), 29, of Avenal, California, who would have to move up one weight class. He has won his only fight since a tight decision loss to Josh Taylor in their undisputed title fight last May.
Promoter Don King announced that the fight between WBA “regular” heavyweight titleholder Trevor Bryan (22-0, 15 KOs) and mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois (17-1, 16 KOs), which is scheduled for June 11, will take place at the Casino Miami Jai-Alai in Miami and be broadcast on pay-per-view. King also announced an undercard with four regional title bouts: heavyweight DaCarree Scott (7-0, 6 KOs) versus Jonathan Guidry (17-1-2, 5 KOs), who lone loss came to Bryan in his last fight; cruiserweight Johnnie Langston versus Isaiah Thompson (6-1-1, 5 KOs); welterweight Tre’Sean Wiggins (13-5-3, 7 KOs) against Travis Castellon (17-4-1, 12 KOs); and junior welterweight Ryan Martin (24-2, 14 KOs), who recently signed with King, against an opponent to be named.
Show and tell
After Oscar De La Hoya got knocked out with a body shot from Bernard Hopkins and lost his middleweight title in an undisputed championship fight, he was idle for 20 months, the longest layoff of his career. So, when De La Hoya returned, having dropped back to junior middleweight, to challenge WBC titleholder Ricardo Mayorga, there was huge excitement from fans. It was a classic good guy versus bad guy fight with Mayorga engaging in his usual wild trash talk.
But when the bell rang at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where I was ringside, it was all De La Hoya. He destroyed Mayorga in a tremendously entertaining fight. He dropped Mayorga in the first round and twice more in the sixth round for a sixth-round knockout victory that put a belt around his waist once again in what wound up being the final victory in a world title fight in De La Hoya’s career. The fight was on May 6, 2006 — 16 years ago on Friday. Here is the cardboard podium sign that was used during fight week for the press conferences in my collection.
Canelo-Bivol and Taylor-Serrano photos: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing; Butler photo: Probellum
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