WBA light heavyweight world champion Dmitry Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) just pulled off a big upset in boxing on Saturday night when he won a unanimous decision over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) in Las Vegas.
May 7th was the day of upsets, first the Kentucky Derby with 80-1 underdog horse First Strike who was a late replacement beat out all the favorites and shocked the horse racing world by winning the derby.
A few hours later in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile arena, Mexican superstar and pound for pound king Canelo Alvarez went up to 175 lbs to fight the undefeated WBA champion Dmitry Bivol.
Canelo who won a title in the division before against the hard hitting Sergey Kovalev, was the betting favorite and picked by the majority of boxing pundits to beat Bivol who was called tailored for Canelo.
Bivol ended up proving the doubters wrong by out-boxing and taking all of Canelo’s best punches without being hurt.
The shorter Canelo who recently won the undisputed crown at 168 pounds knocking out Caleb Plant, looked like he was gassed midway through the fight with Bivol and was frustrated because nothing he did worked.
The weight seemed too much for Canelo and Bivol wasn’t stunned by any power hooks Canelo threw. Canelo tried to sneak in his uppercuts and hooks through and around the gloves but Bivol had such a tight guard nothing seemed to get in clean. Even the hard hook punches Canelo blasted on the arms and side of Bivol had no effect, because even though Bivol admit the punches on the arms hurt he never dropped his guard.
At the end of the fight all three judges scored it identical 115-113 for Bivol. Canelo shook his head in disagreement when Bivol was announced the winner and felt he did enough to win.
This was a huge moment for Bivol and his trainer Joel Diaz, the Indio, California based trainer is also best known for training Tim Bradley when he pulled of a huge upset against Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas.
