Notebook: While Bivol awaits Canelo's rematch decision, he dreams of other fights
Inoue-Donaire II U.S. streaming schedule and undercard set; Quick hits; a very special Show and tell
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While WBA light heavyweight world titlist Dmitry Bivol is home in Russia with his family resting and basking in his career-defining upset decision win over undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, he is also pondering what might be next for him.
Bivol retained his title for the ninth time and bounced Alvarez from his perch as pound-for-pound king with a brilliant display in a unanimous decision — a too-tight 115-113 on all three scorecards — on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
What Bivol does next is not entirely his decision. He must wait to see whether Alvarez invokes his contractual right to an immediate rematch. Alvarez indicated in the immediate aftermath of the fight that he wanted the rematch, but he is currently on vacation with his wife and surely will ponder his official decision.
If Bivol has his way, he said he hopes Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs), 31, of Mexico, will pass on the rematch and free him to pursue other fights even if the rematch would provide him with by far his biggest payday.
“I want more belts. I want to move forward,” Bivol said during a recent video conference with media members hosted by the WBA. “I want to fight for more belts. If I win (against) Canelo again I am in the same place. I have the same belts. It’s the same victory. I prefer, of course, to fight for another belt. But he has (an) option for a rematch and, of course, I (would) give him a rematch because I have to. But I prefer to fight with another champion if I could.”
One fight that intrigues him would be a fight for the undisputed title against the winner of the June 18 bout between WBC/IBF champion Artur Beterbiev (17-0, 17 KOs), 37, Bivol’s Montreal-based Russian countryman, and WBO titleholder Joe Smith Jr. (28-3, 22 KOs), 32, from New York’s Long Island. Bivol sounded a lot more interested in Beterbiev than Smith.
“What about the unification fight with Beterbiev? Of course (it is) an important fight for boxing fans in Russia and other countries too because people want to see the best against the best,” Bivol said.
The 31-year-old Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) has said for years he could move down to super middleweight for the right fight but did not sound too interested in having a potential rematch with Alvarez at 168 pounds, where he could challenge for his undisputed crown.
“It’s not too interesting for me to move down for four belts for a rematch but maybe I could make 168 for four belts,” Bivol said. “Maybe it could happen but better at 175.”
Bivol does have a mandatory challenger in Mexican southpaw Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, who maintained his position with a one-sided fourth-round destruction of Germany’s Dominic Boesel this past Saturday in Golden Boy’s main event on DAZN at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
Ramirez (44-0, 30 KOs), 30, has been calling Bivol out for the better part of year, but Bivol understandably pursued the much bigger fight with Alvarez. Having gotten that fight and defeated boxing’s biggest star, Bivol said he is open to facing Ramirez.
“A fight against Gilberto Ramirez is interesting fight for me, too,” Bivol said. “But it’s not my first (option) because I would like to fight for more belts. But maybe he is in second place because he talked about me many times. He’s mentioned me many times. He has a good record. I would like to fight him too if I couldn’t get a title (unification) fight.”
Inoue-Donaire II details
Top Rank on Tuesday announced that the three-belt bantamweight unification fight between IBF/WBA champion Naoya Inoue and WBC titlist Nonito Donaire on June 7 will stream live on ESPN+ beginning at 5 a.m. ET from Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
The fight is a rematch of the 2019 fight of the year that three-division champion Inoue (22-0, 19 KOs), 29, of Japan, won by grueling decision to unify belts, after which four-division champion Donaire (42-6, 28 KOs), 39, a Philippines native fighting out of Las Vegas, eventually won another title.
“Naoya Inoue and Nonito Donaire’s first fight is among the greatest championship battles I’ve ever seen, and I am thrilled that American fight fans can watch the rematch on ESPN+,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, Inoue’s co-promoter, who also promoted Donaire for several years.
Two other bouts will be part of the stream:
Junior featherweight Takuma Inoue (15-1, 3 KOs), 26, of Japan, Naoya’s younger brother and a former bantamweight world title challenger, will defend his regional belt against countryman Gakuya Furuhashi (28-8-2, 16 KOs), 34, in a 12-rounder. Inoue has won two in a row since losing a decision to then-WBC titlist Nordine Oubaali in 2019.
Junior welterweight Andy Hiraoka (19-0, 14 KOs), a 25-year-old southpaw, will defend the Japanese title against Shun Akaiwa (7-3-1, 5 KOs), 29, in a 10-rounder.
Quick hits
Cecilia Braekhus, the former longtime undisputed women’s welterweight champion and pound-for-pound queen, is moving up in weight and will challenge Patricia Berghult for her WBC junior middleweight title on Aug. 13 in Bali, Colombia in the co-feature of WBC bridgerweight titlist Oscar Rivas’s first defense and homecoming fight against Luckaz Rozanski. Norway’s Braekhus (36-2, 9 KOs), 40, a Colombia native, will be fighting in her birth country for the first time and boxing for the first time since March 2021, when she lost her second fight in a row to Jessica McCaskill in an undisputed welterweight title fight. Berghult (15-0, 3 KOs), 28, of Sweden, will be making her first title defense.
Junior bantamweight champion Juan Francisco Estrada (42-3, 28 KOs), 32, of Mexico, and secondary titlist Joshua Franco (18-1-2, 8 KOs), 26, of San Antonio, have signed their contracts for a WBA mandatory fight. Golden Boy told Fight Freaks Unite it is planning the fight for July 16 in the co-feature of a DAZN card lightweight star Ryan Garcia is penciled in to headline against an opponent to be determined. Golden Boy, which promotes Franco, won the Estrada-Franco purse bid for the minimum $120,000, meaning Estrada is due $90,000 (75 percent) and Franco $30,000 (25 percent). However, it is likely both signed for larger guarantees to make sure the fight goes through.
Jermell Charlo’s 10th-round knockout of Brian Castano in their rematch to become the first undisputed junior middleweight champion of the four-belt era on Saturday night averaged 756,000 viewers on Showtime, according to Nielsen Media Research. That is the best “Showtime Championship Boxing” figure since Deontay Wilder defended the WBC heavyweight title by first-round knockout of Dominic Breazeale on May 18, 2019. That brief fight averaged 791,000 viewers. Charlo-Castano II peaked at 832,000 viewers during the main event, the best Showtime boxing peak since Wilder-Breazeale (895,000). Charlo-Castano II also blew away the numbers for their first fight last July. That Showtime fight averaged 422,000 viewers and peaked at 536,000.
Promoter Lou DiBella announced he has signed highly touted amateur welterweight Yoel Angeloni, 18, an Italian-Cuban, who will turn pro in a four-rounder against Australia’s Ken Aitken (3-0, 1 KO) on the undercard of the George Kambosos Jr.-Devin Haney undisputed lightweight title fight on June 4 at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, which has one of the largest Italian communities outside of Italy. Angeloni, who was born in Italy to an Italian father and Cuban mother, moved to Cuba at age 3 before returning to Italy at age 15. He was 130-2 for the Cuban national youth boxing team and won a gold medal for Italy at the 2019 Junior European Championships.
The lightweight fight between former junior lightweight titlist Tevin Farmer (30-5-1, 6 KOs), 32, a southpaw from Philadelphia, and former lightweight titleholder Mickey Bey (23-3-1, 11 KOs), 38, of Cleveland, scheduled to headline a pay-per-view on Saturday at Coca Cola Arena in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has been postponed, organizers announced. It was postponed for the same reason as last Saturday’s Floyd Mayweather-Don Moore exhibition in Dubai — the death of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE. The nation is in a 40-day mourning period. “On behalf of the organizers Bigger than Life Sports, Tevin Farmer and Mickey Bey, we want to give our condolences to all of the people of Dubai (UAE) on the passing of their great leader,” they said in a statement.
The card headline by secondary lightweight titlist Gervonta Davis defending against Rolando Romero on May 28 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York is available as a typical Showtime PPV via iNDEMAND on linear television and satellite, but PPV.com, iNDEMAND’s new streaming platform, is also offering the same broadcast for those who prefer to stream the event.
Show and tell
The late Arturo Gatti, my all-time favorite fighter, was a stalwart of HBO’s boxing franchise for years, having engaged in several action-packed fights even before his all-time legendary trilogy with Micky Ward. Two fights after Gatti was stopped by the much bigger Oscar De La Hoya, and in the fight after Ward lost a split technical decision to James Leija, Gatti and Ward were matched in a 10-round junior welterweight fight in a one-bout “Boxing After Dark” telecast. Expectations for an action fight were high, but few expected it to be one of the most epic battles in boxing history. Gatti was penalized one point in the fourth round for a low blow by referee Frank Cappuccino and then got knocked down with a hellacious body shot he incredibly survived in the ninth round, which was one of the greatest rounds in history. The level of drama and action in the fight was off the charts and was an instant classic, which Ward won by majority decision — 95-93, 94-93 and 94-94 — in a mild upset. Had Ward not won it is unlikely there would have been two more chapters of a rivalry that began with the fighters not knowing each other and ended with them becoming best friends.
I was working for USA Today when the first fight happened and was scheduled to travel to the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, to cover it, but a day or two before I was supposed to leave I came down with flu-like symptoms and was out of commission. I was really disappointed to miss the fight, which I watched live curled up in a ball on a bed in the guest room of my old townhouse with a fever and a cold towel on my head. I did cover the second and third fights at ringside, but I’m still ticked off I missed the first fight. That unforgettable battle was on May 18, 2002 — 20 years ago on Wednesday. The casino made only a few site posters to hang around the property and they are extraordinarily rare. I have two of them, an unsigned one and this one autographed in gold ink by both fighters that is one of the centerpieces of my poster collection that numbers around 5,000.
Bivol photo: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing
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With the judging Canelo should do the rematch he's got an excellent chance of winning. Sometimes your just off feeling weak.. next fight feeling strong is it for the win.