Dmitrii Yuriyevich Bivol vs. Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán & Zhìlěi Zhāng vs. Scott Alexander RBR

He was asked what he considered his best wins and he said Cotto and GGG

I said that about Cotto being his idol

To be honest and not try and pull the wool over our eyes. He picked the weakest LHW out of the three. Kovalev was a shell of himself and he knew it. Beterbiev and Bivol whoop that version of Kov

 

I hope Bivol sticks the nut in on him

 

Exactly, he needs to really go all out early, sit down on his shots, put the fear of God into Canelo. Make him respect the power. Personally, I think Bivol is similar to Gvozdyk in this respect, I think he has far more power than most realize, but he's safety first and risk averse. So like Gvozdyk, he just does a number on them, and if they start wilting late and the opportunity presents itself, he takes them out. I think that was the strategy Gvozdyk was banking on against Beterbiev, similar to what he did with Stevenson, well... that blew up in his face big time, however if a full steam blunt force trauma inflicting Gvozdyk had of come out, looking for the KO, he could've probably gotten Beterbiev out of there in 3 or 4 rounds. Bivol needs to learn from that mistake, and learn from what the pussyfooting around against guys like Craig Richards, who barely won a round off of him, will get him with the judges. Bivol back in the day was getting solid guys out of there in the first four rounds with regularity. But then after taking on sturdy chinned guys who are nigh impossible to KO, like Pascal, Chilemba and Smith, it's like he stopped believing in his power and stopped trying. Which is a real pity, because who other than prime Kovalev has stopped Pascal? Smith Jr. has a block for a head, Chilemba has been stopped once by Gvozdyk, no big deal there. So hopefully his trainer will realize these things and give him some practical advice. You're the big guy, with bigger power, now believe in it goddammit!

 

unfortunately he's a very clean fighter and I don't ever recall seeing him do anything dirty

 

Prime Kovalev would've torn Canelo, Golovkin and Beterbiev's eyebrows off, all on the same night.

 

And given them all a pelvic thrust while doing it.

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One thing I like about Bivol is after the criticism he received for not getting his opponents out of there of late he didn't let the pressure get to him or allow it to make him desperate to score a KO in his next fight. As said, most of those guys were super/durable tough guys and all bigger than him and you put on a clinic like he routinely does if you come from across the pond and you're considered a magician.

 

Prime Kovalev was special. Excellent, albeit predictably underrated boxing skills, and ridiculous snappy power that also has serious thud behind it