HBO: Dmitry Yuriyevich Bivol vs. Jean-Thenistor Pascal & Murodjon Akhmadaliev vs. Isaac Zarate RBR

"I'm really disappointed to have lost," Pascal said after the fight, on the pay-per-view television. I had trained very hard. Bivol is really the future of the division. I had predicted that he would be champion after a workout with him. He did not make me lie. "



Still, at the end of the ring, the 36-year-old Quebecker refused to say that he had just fought his last fight.

"I still have a lot of gas in the tank," he said. I am in an exemplary form and I finished the fight in force. [...] In life, we must persevere. "


“When I sparred with Jean Pascal, it was two years ago,” Bivol said during the post-fight press conference. “I felt his power. He’s a really strong guy. He looks like a cross-fit man and he is really strong. [With] these small gloves, of course I felt his power. And he punched with [a wild] swing, this strong punch. Of course I felt a couple punches.”

His sparring experience, as well as Pascal’s two fights against Sergey Kovalev, also made Bivol aware that he couldn’t afford to get reckless versus the former WBC light heavyweight champion. Even though Kovalev stopped Pascal twice, Bivol noticed there were instances when Pascal caught Kovalev with hard right hands and occasionally left hooks.

“I was not aggressive because I knew he has this counter-punching technique,” Bivol said. “And I said this before the fight, he tries to counter-punch with the right. He tries to hide the punch behind his shoulder and sometimes he tries to counter-punch with the left, wide. I knew that, so my goal was to not to let him do that. A lot of times when people are aggressive with him, you’ve seen him land big shots on other fighters. … I had to do the work of moving on my feet and not let him do that to me. That was more important.”

The 27-year-old Bivol (15-0, 11 KOs) feels he hurt Pascal (33-6-1, 20 KOs, 1 NC), but he remained mindful of Pascal’s power even when his challenger appeared vulnerable.

“Yes, there were moments when I could’ve tried to stop him, I could’ve tried to take advantage of it,” Bivol said. “But to be honest with you, he’s sturdier than I thought he is. I already knew he’s durable, but he’s very tough. He’s tougher than I thought, because even at those moments he was still dangerous.”




“You know,” Bivol said, “every time I say [to] my team, ‘I want big fights. I want big names. I want belts. If you can, organize [one]. If you can’t promote me [for] a unification fight in my division, maybe I can go down a weight class to fight for another belt.’ Because I wanna make big things in boxing. I want a big fight. It depends on my team, because I am ready. I have one belt and of course I want more, because I know if I have one belt I can get more belts.”

Competing at super middleweight would give Bivol a size advantage against at least some opponents.

That typically isn’t the case for the Kyrgzstan native at light heavyweight. Quebec’s Pascal (33-6-1, 20 KOs, 1 NC) weighed 188 pounds on HBO’s unofficial scale Saturday night, seven pounds more than Bivol (15-0, 11 KOs).

“Every time I can make super middleweight, because I’m not a big guy,” Bivol said. “You saw my fight against Pascal. He was bigger than me. I’m not a big guy. Maybe if another fighter [were] in my place [he] can make super middleweight. But I know big fights [are at] light heavyweight. It’s a more interesting weight for us. This is why I’m here, in the light heavyweight division.”

 

For the record, to clarify my criticisms of Bivol, its not that I don't like him, I clearly do, I enthusiastically made a thread about him. Its just that I tend to reflexively pull back when a fighter becomes the pet project for a channel, which then subjectively pushes him down our throats, and throws out platitudinal statements about how he's the next big thing, or a future ATG, or especially the whole he could "easily beat Gvozdyk, Beterbiev or Kovalev" thing rubs me the wrong way. And with all that hype, a legion of inane fanboys jump on board. So while I don't consider what happened last night or in his last outing against Chilemba as evidence of him being "exposed", however it did confirm to me my initial assumptions, that Bivol isn't this heavy handed killing machine on the level of Kovalev and Beterbiev, he isn't flawless and his chin isn't as solid as many want to believe. After all, he's praising how heavy handed and dangerous Pascal was last night, Jean hurt him worse than he ever hurt Kovalev last night.

If anything, his last two performances have brought people back down to earth with Bivol, and lowered the temperature in the hype furnace. The fact is, as skilled as he is, and aside from maybe Gvozdyk, he is the most skilled Light Heavyweight, bar none. He's not going to just walk through the division, (no one is) and yes, Beterbiev, Gvozdyk, Kovalev, Alvarez, and a few others give him a very stern test, and a few of them will probably beat him. Quite frankly, I wouldn't rule out a win by some of the moderately skilled bangers in the division like Smith Jr. and Johnson. Bivol is awesome, but this is a stacked division, but he's on the small side, and isn't a KO artist, which isn't a good thing.... he's far from unbeatable. That is all.

Basically I'm a bigger fanboy of Kovalev and Gvozdyk, and gun to my head, I side with Beterbiev over Bivol as well, so he's a solid 4th with the EE's for me, and I get all bitchy when the guys I like get so easily swept to the side.

 

Gonzalez was good enough to draw with or beat by a point Pascal, and do very well against Slava. Which means he's a solid operator, most aren't capable of beating or even hanging with those two, the only ones that walk through them are the Top 175lbers. No one is overhyping, the fact is... Gonzalez is decent, Slava is decent, this old version of Pascal is decent. And its not so much that Gvozdyk beat Yunieski, its the manner in which he beat Yunieski that is what's impressive, same goes for the way he beat Chilemba.

I'm not overrating Gvozdyk, you're underrating him, because like I said on the other thread, you hold certain fighters to impossibly high standards.

 

I already know the primary reason why you've gone a little sour on him, the last paragraph being it and people picking him to beat Kovalev and Gvozdyk or claiming he's much better than them. But I also know that you do like him too, both personality wise and as fighter.

I've always maintained that all four of the Soviet horsemen of the apocalypse are really talented and the only way we're going to find out who the best is if they all fight each other. I'm a huge fan of all 4 of them and I hold them all in very high regard.


I've also maintained that LHW is stacked to **** and it's going to be nigh on impossible for any one fighter to go through the division without picking up a loss or two and that even if you did a round robin tournament featuring those fighters no one is going undefeated. Kovalev might beat Bivol, Bivol might beat Beterbiev, Beterbiev might beat Gvozdyk and Gvozdy might beat Kovalev or vice versa. Kovalev is obviously nowhere near the beast he was circa 2012-2014 now though.

I've never considered Bivol a puncher the calibre of Kovalev, Beterbiev and Stevenson, that's because he clearly isn't. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't hit hard, it's just that those 3 hit ridiculously hard and are all top 10 P4P punchers.

And Bivol just isn't a natural LHW like they are. Kovalev weighed more than Pascal in both their fights albeit just by a solitary pound in the rematch. Beterbiev is built like a brick ****house although I don't think he's quite as big as some think he is. Stevenson weighed 189 against Bellew IIRC and he's definitely a natural LHW now IMO. If what Marc Ramsey said is true about Alvarez weighing 192 when he fought Kovalev, well that's the highest ever recorded ring weight or at least the joint highest for a LHW I've ever heard so he's a huge LHW. Badou Jack was 2lbs heavier against Degale down at 168 than what Bivol weighed last night so no question he's a big LHW too now.

As for Bivol's chin, I've seen nothing to suggest there's anything wrong with it at all and I don't think Pascal hurt him. He buzzed him with a huge right hand and then he immediately pounced on him unleashing a non stop barrage of hooks pretty much all of which Bivol blocked but Pascal went full Tasmanian devil on him for about 10 seconds and Bivol couldn't do anything other than cover up until he'd shot his bolt because of the intensity of the attack lol.

Pascal might not be a KO puncher but he swings from the fences, is a very sneaky puncher with an ambush style and his shots do carry weight and can do damage. He caught Kovalev with some big clean eye catching shots and although Sergey wasn't badly hurt by any of them he definitely felt the weight of them and was buzzed by some of them, as any LHW would be.

And as said, Bivol's giving away a significant amount of weight to most of his opponents at 175 so that also has to be factored in when assessing his punch resistance.

 

I'd like to see him move down to 168 and try and clean up there. It would be interesting to see how much more effective his power would be against men who he isn't giving away 5-8lbs to.

 

I think Smith might have commented on it. I'll see if I can find it later.