Yep, it still seems like a shocker that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez received a boxing lesson courtesy of light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol on May 7.
Bivol’s dominant unanimous decision victory did a few things to Alvarez: It wiped out his 8-fight win streak; it shattered the mystique of an indestructible Canelo; and it also cracked open two big questions — one about Alvarez’s next fight and the second about his standing in the boxing world.
Let’s examine those questions:
What is Alvarez’s next fight?
Alvarez owns the right to exercise an immediate rematch clause to fight Bivol again. However, Alvarez could skip running it back and go with the money match: a trilogy fight with Gennady Golovkin in September.
Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KO) and Golovkin (42-1-1, 37 KO) met twice for all the middleweight gold. The September 2017 bout ended in a controversial draw that most boxing pundits saw Golovkin as the victor. One year later, Alvarez beat Golovkin via majority decision. Both contests were brutal and dynamic, with fight fans demanding a third fight for four years.
Well, now is the time. And Alvarez must know his loss to Bivol has not diminished the demand — nor the gazillion-dollar return — of a third GGG fight. However, if Alvarez would lose to Bivol in a rematch, the trilogy’s luster would fade — and it may never happen at all.
Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn believes a third Alvarez-GGG bout is an easier sell after Alvarez lost to Bivol. Hearn said in a recent interview with iFL TV: “The Golovkin fight becomes bigger now because people give Golovkin a chance of winning the fight. Before it was all like, Oh, he’s 39 he’s 40, he’s not going to win the fight. Now people look at that performance and say, OK, maybe Golovkin’s got more chance.” And Hearn knows a little something about selling a fight.
Is Alvarez still the Pound for Pound best?
The boxing experts bestowed the fictitious title of Pound for Pound Champion upon Alvarez when Floyd Mayweather Jr. retired from boxing (not sideshows) in 2017. But now Alvarez cannot claim the top spot after Bivol revealed the step-by-step guide on how to defeat him.
So if Alvarez isn’t the Pound for Pound champ, who is? Undefeated welterweight champion Terence Crawford should be the unanimous choice . The Pound for Pound case could also be made for bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue and heavyweight champs Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury. Boxing writer Brian Campbell at cbssports.com puts Canelo atop the Pound for Pound rankings, even after the Bivol defeat.
Without question, Alvarez still ranks in the Pound for Pound Top 10. And if he defeats GGG — or Bivol — in his next fight, he could shoot to the top of the Pound for Pound leaderboard once again.
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