Bivol beat Canelo. He earned his lottery ticket. Would be foolish not to cash it in. As much as I want the unification i can see why he is waiting for this
Beterbiev should probably clean up on the UK pool now post Yarde. Probably a couple of PPV fights over there were he can get paid well.
If Beterbiev had turned pro at a young age and been more active as a pro, he would have been unstoppable and arguably the greatest light heavyweight of all time.
LH is one of the deepest divisions in the history of boxing with loads of ATGs fighting there. Who has Beterbiev beaten to even be considered anywhere near these greats, let alone the GOAT LH? If he started earlier and had, say, another 10-15 wins under his belt, who are the great LHs that he could've beaten to be considered the best ever?
I think in Bivol's mind, both can happen. I'd only call it a duck if the fight doesn't happen after Callum Smith and Canelo 2. We don't really know why it didn't happen prior to the Canelo fight. If it doesn't happen after this, we can say it's probably Bivol's fault as Bivol has all of the reason to duck at this point. But right now, what is Bivol supposed to do? Not fight Canelo, wait for Beterbiev to fight, and then fight him? Why not just make the money, and then fight later this year? What if Beterbiev loses to Smith? It's not outside the realm of possibility after his last showing. I see your concern, but this is a thread that should have been made prior to Bivol vs Canelo, it's not a sensible thread at this point in time.
Looney world, but purely hypothetically, if he beat: Kovalev Ward Stevenson Bivol Gvozdyk Canelo Pascal Jack Bellew He'd probably be recognized as the GOAT LHW by most people, and the best by select historians. Imagine if he knocked them all out. Purely hypothetical.
I'm not sure if he would be the greatest but undoubtedly would be an ATG. I think he was already past prime by the time he turned professional.
Obviously none of those guys are top LHWs all time by resume, but when you multiple pound for pound rankers (Canelo, Bivol, Kovalev and Ward), especially if you KO them, and you clear your era, people are going to put you up there. And dominance can usually be traded for resume to some extent. Ie, if one guy beats 1 ATG and 4 total HoFers without losing, while another guy beats 2 ATGs and 10 HoFers but loses a few times, a lot of people (even some historians) will pick the former over the latter in their rankings. Especially if the former knocked all his opponents out.
Agreed, like I said it would be very impressive if Beterbiev KO'd all of those guys, but it still wouldn't get him anywhere near GOAT status. But you are right, there would be plenty who'd rate him up there if he accomplished all of that & it wouldn't surprise me. After all, we live at a time when people are saying things like Fury is the GOAT HW and other similarly nonsensical things.
Team Bivol is 100% avoiding Beterbiev, even at his age. Bivol himself wants to fight, but his trainer knows Beterbiev very well and he knows that Bivol physically is not ready for monster like that. Bivol will have to be a lot stronger and do special training just to keep Beterbiev respect him.
no ****. canelo moves up 2 divisions to fight the biggest name in that division and hes a ducker whos afraid of beve. bivol fights a guy from a lower division and hes a smart business man. shameless.