WBO light heavyweight champion American Joe Smith Jr. (28-3, 22 KOs) is not sure that the holder of all belts in the lower division Mexican Saul Canelo Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) needs another attempt to conquer 79.4 kg .
Canelo became the champion in this weight in 2019 – he knocked out Russian Sergey Kovalev and took away the WBO belt. In May of this year, Alvarez again tried to take the light heavyweight belt, but this time he lost – WBA Super champion Dmitry Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) from Russia turned out to be too tough for the Mexican.
Smith recently admitted that he bet on Bivol’s victory over Alvarez and won some money. He
surethat nothing will change in the rematch: “I think Bivol showed just a great performance against Canelo. I don’t think Saul should go for revenge. I think Bivol is too tough for him.”
In 2019, Smith tried to take the WBA belt from Bivol, losing to him by decision of the judges. The American wants revenge: “I would love to share the ring with him again. I am such a tough guy who had a lot of obstacles on the way. But I got over them.”
Already this weekend, Smith will fight in unification with the WBC / IBF champion Russian Artur Beterbiev (17-0, 17 KOs): “I intend to become a unified world champion. If I can beat Artur and get three belts, then I will gladly have a rematch with Bivol. I think it will not be easy to beat Beterbiev. It will be a hell of a fight. We both prefer to act as the first number. Both prefer hard pressing. So it’s potentially just a great fight. Either way, we’re going to have a great fight.”
Alas, this is not to be. Promoter Bob Arum already knows who the winner of the Beterbiev-Smith fight will fight. A little earlier, the underdog told how he plans to beat the puncher from the Russian Federation.
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