Was Bivol a cherry pick gone wrong for Canelo ?

If given the choice of fighting Bivol or Beterviev, who would you chose? You lose by being outboxed,
or you lose by being Bolivianated.

I thought so.

Canelo was after "history" and expanding his "legacy" by winning a LWH belt. He already "made LHW history"
by picking an alcoholic, used up, Kovalev and made him fight immediately after a very difficult fight. Now,
he picked the better of two choices in Bivol, and it backfired on him.

Only Canelo nut huggers like Ak and Barak see it being "brave" to get in there with Bivol.

 

Yes. They didn't see Bivol as a ko threat and thought Canelo would be competitive in enough rounds for the biased judges to give him the win.

 

The only way you can call that a cherry pick is if you don’t know crap about boxing or if you’re a Canelo hater.

I’m amazed to see some saying “his team didn’t realize how good Bivol was”

do you really believe that the team of the biggest draw in the sport didn’t know how good the consensus first or second best light heavyweight in the world was?

 

Yes they knew EXACTLY who the best LHW champ was....Beterviev...that's why they went to the SECOND best LHW in the world, in other words they deliberately chose Bivol over Beterviev. That's the definition of a cherry pick.

 

I don’t buy it bro. If he caught Bivol after an extremely poor performance, made him cut weight, etc. I’d consider it a cherry pick…

He moved up in weight to fight the number 1/2 guy, and graced him with a pay day…

The shell of Kovalev, that was a cherry-pick.

 

Yes and no.
We have to assess quality so for instance if we look at Super Middle then the quality simply isn't there. That isn't Canelo's fault but it was a division that could be cleared out.
If we look at Light Heavy then Bivol and Beterbiev are both quality operators and are a couple of levels up from anyone at Super Middle.
Now people generally use hindsight after the fact but the fact is Bivol hadn't looked that great in his two previous fights with his last KO several years ago and Beterbiev has knocked out everyone. So yes Bivol was seen as the easier task as Ginger was unlikely to get knocked out and he generally has the benefit of the judges. A fight with Beterbiev could have resulted more than likely in Ginger getting his chin cracked.
The strategy concerning Beterbiev was no different to GGG. That is to age him out before attempting that challenge.
Where Canelo's team made a mistake was in the level of schooling that Bivol delivered which for me was nearly a shut out.
So yeah some of us called it out beforehand but many are concluding after the fact.
So Canelo deserves props for taking that challenge but he was taking what was perceived beforehand a less risky option compared to the dude who was KTFO every single man before him.

 

How is a undefeated lightweight champion a cherry pick?

 

"Calculated low-hanging fruit belt-grab"

So yes, IMO Canelo's team made a bit of cherry pick but miscalculated.
I think Canelo and Reynoso both started to believe that Canelo's change of style and bodywork, which worked for Plant, Saunders, Smith and Yildirim would also be too much for Bivol, who - by possibly many - was seen as potentially soft to the body and inside.

But as others had noted, Bivol's judging of distance is top drawer, and he executed a flawless gameplan - and surprisingly Canelo and Reynoso had no plan B to fall back on / make adjustments.

My view is that Canelo and Hearn etc figured Alvarez would be competetive enough to win a decision - and considering that if Bivol hadn't won the last round on all 3 judges cards it would have been a draw, it's doesn't take sherlock & watson to see where they were looking.

Hearn has been a disgrace to Dmitry IMO, either trying to set him up as fodder for Canelo - or Buatsi - though I suspect that is off the table now, Bivol schools Buatsi.

 

FrankinDallas justifies it as a cherrypick because Canelo picked Bivol over Beterbiev who is consider far more dangerous than Bivol. Picking the safer opponent, lesser of 2 evils so to speak. From that perspective, I can see how people can call it a cherry pick. But, that's one tough cherry.

 

I honestly don't think it was a cherry pick. Canelo will go into a fight thinking he can win. Even reviewing the forum posts it was very clear that people said it was a pick em and many predicted Bivol to win, which he did. Canelo's team will of course be confident and talk confidently pre fight, and back this up post fight by saying that they though they would win. It doesn't make it a cherry pick though.

 

I think it was a cherrypick in the sense that Bivol hadn't looked very good in his last two fightsand that he doesn't have the reputation of being a hard puncher. I think that Canelo has started buying into his own hype as a destroyer, and while he certainly hits hard, it's his boxing skills that make him great. In the Bivol fight he tried to smash Bivol's arms to make him drop his guard for the kill, and when that gameplan failed ginger was up **** creek without a paddle.

Bivol is actually a particularly difficult stylistic combination for Canelo, and in that sense he was in no way a cherry pick. Bivol's combination of fluid feet (vs Canelo slow feet) high workrate (vs Canelo low workrate) fast punches (Canelo's opponents are usually slower than him) and good stamina and defence made him a conglomeration of all the things that trouble Canelo. Add in Bivol's size and great jab and you start to wonder why ginger ever went near him.

Truth is I think Canelo took the fight because he thought Bivol was slipping, because he overestimated himself and because he had handled slippery opponents successfully in the past. I believe that Canelo expected a hard fight but that he would prevail.

 

while tanking on the path of least resistance comes natural in human nature …
Calling Bivol an actual “cherry pick”
Is lack of respect for Bivol, lack of respect for Canelo & lack of respect for boxing.

 

Well if there's two option with one being ktfo out then relatively speaking if you pick the other then that is a cherry pick relatively speaking.

 

It was a cherry pick in the sense they expected Canelo to win more rounds against Bivol than Craig Richards.