he beats Zurdo, beats Canelo in the rematch, beats Beterbiev in Moscow and throw in Smith + Yarde. Where would he be ranked as an all-time great LHW in your opinions?
If Bivol achieved all that, he would be the best of his era no doubt - he's a wonderful fighter and I like him over Beterbiev, if they ever actually fight. LH is a stacked division, historically - you guys would rate him over fighters like Moore, Spinks, Charles, Tunney, Loughran, Conn, Foster, etc etc etc? And what about guys like Greb and Langford?
Beating an aging Beterbiev will be good but not enough to surpass Ezzard Charles. Ezzard Charles beat Archie Moore three times. Bivol can't surpass that. If Bivol beat the Beterbiev of 2 years ago + did all the things you stated, he would be top 10 all time.
Prime Kovalev, Ward, Jones, and Calzaghe all beat Bivol. Currently, Beterbiev is no worse than even money. Bivol is an excellent fighter, but he's not a generational type talent.
If he beat Beterbiev by a wide margin, so Bivol had these handful of really good wins, it would be hard to say "oh so and so is clearly better" and yet at the same time do you really want to say that Bivol's 5-6 meaningful wins should be ranked above someone with 20 wins at a similar level (and maybe a few losses too). He might be a favorite over almost anyone but a lot of chaos happens in a 12-15 round fight (especially at higher weight classes) and you can't give too much credit until someone has done it enough times.
Why did Bivol go from mediocre to alltime great after beating Canelo? I think he would be the best in this current generation if he beats Beterbiev.I already knew he would beat Canelo, and if he fights him again he will win again, i expect him to beat Zurdo as well.
Top tier I believe and would be similar to Andre Ward but he will need to defeat David Benaivides as well.