Canelo Álvarez passed his first challenge of 2023 by defeating John Ryder a few weeks ago, and now he is already planning his second fight of the year.
Canelo will look for other options if an agreement with Bivol is not reached
The undisputed super middleweight champion has made it clear that his main goal is a rematch against Dmitry Bivol, although negotiations with the Russian boxer have been halted due to some disagreements.
During a recent press conference at First Tee México, a society that seeks for low-income children to play golf, Canelo assured that next week it will be announced if Bivol will be his next opponent, or if they will look for other options.
“The following week we will already have something concrete, a path where it is going. It is the fight we are looking for (Bivol), and if not, there are many interesting fights,” said Canelo.
Bivol, the 32-year-old Russian boxer, is the current 175-pound light heavyweight champion of the World Boxing Association (WBA) and defeated Canelo back in May 2022. While the boxer from Guadalajara affirmed that he wants his second fight with Bivol, if an agreement is not reached, Canelo would be looking at other options.
“My goal is a rematch with Bivol, but we’ll see how he behaves too because sometimes they start wanting more than they deserve, so negotiations start to get complicated, but in the end there are many interesting fights that I’m not closed to any of them,” he added.
Recently Mauricio Sulaimán, president of the WBC, has made it clear that the governing body will not endorse the rematch fight between Canelo Álvarez and Dmitry Bivol if it takes place at 168 pounds for Canelo’s undisputed titles, as Bivol wants.
Bivol, the WBA titlist at Light Heavyweight, assures that he is only interested in fighting Canelo at 168 pounds and not at 175, because he wants to challenge the Mexican for the four super middleweight world title belts, including the WBC gold.
However, the body maintains a sanction against Russian fighters due to the war that Russia is experiencing with Ukraine. And that way, no Russian fighter, including Bivol, is eligible to fight for a WBC title.
