On the air of the podcast The FIGHT with Teddy Atlas, the famous American martial arts columnist Teddy Atlas
toldwhy he doesn’t want to see the second fight between the absolute champion of the second middleweight (up to 76.2 kg) Mexican Canelo Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs) and the WBA super champion light heavyweight (up to 79.4 kg) Russian Dmitry Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs).
According to the ex-boxing coach, there is a high probability of unfair scoring in a possible rematch.
Recall that in May of this year, Bivol defeated Canelo, who had risen to his weight category, on points by unanimous decision.
“I don’t want to see a Bivol-Canelo rematch. Mexican fans want to see him, but I don’t. And I’ll tell you why. First of all, a more competitive duel is Beterbiev – Bivol. I think most real boxing fans will agree with me.”
- “Rock, asbestos suit, tires.” Teddy Atlas on the Beterbiev-Bivol fight
“The reason I don’t want to see Bivol – Canelo 2 is because I don’t want to give these judges who can be corrupt sometimes, I don’t want to give them another chance to rob him. Because they tried to do it in the first fight. Even if they couldn’t because he was very one-sided. If my memory serves me, I probably gave 10 rounds to 2 or 11 to 1 in favor of Bivol. I haven’t seen Canelo win more than two rounds. And the judges got a close fight. Although it was a unanimous decision, they made him close. I don’t want to give them another chance! I really don’t want to.”
“If your house is robbed or almost robbed, what will you do? You set an alarm. You don’t leave the doors open. You close the doors, you put a padlock on them and set an alarm. You won’t make yourself easily robbed again. They have already shown what they will do.”
- Ortiz: “Bivol is just great. Canelo is the easiest fight for him.”
“I’m afraid that Canelo might make the fight look a little closer. He already knows more about Bivol. He won’t win, but now he knows more about who he is. And sometimes people are idle along the way. You don’t drive at 70 mph all the time. You drive 50 to save fuel. He doesn’t go 70 and 80 just to go. He steps on the gas when the time comes. Because of those savings, maybe Canelo took something away from the first fight. He will jab a little more, maybe he will add something to his game, maybe he will add false blows, maybe he will leave the distance a little earlier, change it and will not catch combinations in the head, as in the end of the first fight. Maybe he learned from his mistakes.”
“But more importantly, he was trying to take advantage in places where Bivol wasn’t stepping on the gas. He was trying to fool the spectators, he was trying to fool the judges. And the problem with these judges is that they really don’t need to be fooled, they are already on your side. “I’m afraid he might give them a reason to rob Bivol. Don’t give them that, they already have it. You’re the Golden Goose, they’ll take care of you. For all these reasons, I want to see the Beterbiev-Bivol fight. I don’t want to “to see a fighter who lost convincingly but gets another chance he didn’t deserve. When others should get it. Gets another chance in this system. Not to beat a fighter, but to beat a system where the judges can just rob Bivol.”
Bivol has previously stated that he would be interested in a rematch with Canelo at 76.2 kg in order to compete for the undisputed title of the division belonging to the Mexican.