Canelo Alvarez wants a rematch against Dmitry Bivol and says he didn’t lose the fight
Canelo Alvarez insists he wants a rematch against Dmitry Bivol and believes he didn’t deserve to lose their fight in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
The Mexican suffered the second loss of his career as Bivol delivered a master class to retain his WBA light heavyweight title.
All three judges gave the contest a 115-113 in Bivol’s favour, but many felt the 31-year-old Russian had won by an even more comfortable margin.
Alvarez was tapped for a trilogy fight against Gennady Golovkin later this year, but following his loss Canelo now says he wants to face Bivol a second time.
“Yes, we want the rematch and we want to do a lot better in the rematch,” Canelo said after his loss.
“I feel like judges often judge things that maybe they shouldn’t, for example I was blocking shots and throwing punches and I think sometimes that’s where the mistake was made.”
When asked if he thought he ever fell behind on the scorecards during the fight, Canelo replied, “No.”
And when asked if he would have thought differently if he had known he was behind, Canelo said: “More aggressive, I think.”
Bivol, meanwhile, revealed after the fight that he had taken advantage of Canelo’s tendency to throw more power punches.
“I was focused the whole fight, I saw he was just throwing hard punches and after hard punches he was a bit tired,” Bivol said.
“Canelo is a good fighter for a counter-puncher but I got him to go more forward and I was the counter-puncher today and that was key.”
After the fight, Eddie Hearn praised Bivol for his “outstanding” defensive performance against Canelo.
“We talked before this fight about how good Dmitry Bivol is, how tough this fight is, and it was a perfect performance,” Hearn said.
“He had to box exactly the way he boxed to win this fight. The jury got me right. He won the fight. Did Canelo look a bit flat? Did he look tired? I think it was the brilliance of Dmitry Bivol.
“You saw his arms after the fight. He caught almost everything on the glove.
“His defense was excellent, his feet were great. He was aggressive enough in fights to win the rounds.
“A big, big shock, but tonight belongs to Dmitry Bivol.”
For more stories like this, visit our sports page.
Follow Metro Sport for the latest news
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/05/08/canelo-alvarez-wants-rematch-against-dmitry-bivol-and-says-he-did-not-lose-fight-16605272/ Canelo Alvarez wants a rematch against Dmitry Bivol and says he didn't lose the fight