Every sport needs someone who transcends their craft, a superstar who breathes new life into the sport. For years, boxing relied on the headlines and pay per view numbers that came from Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio to keep the sport alive, as they are regarded as the best of their era.
Pacquiao continues to fight on, while Mayweather has since retired.
And, in the meantime, a new face has emerged in recent years, as Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez has left his mark. On November 2nd, Alvarez will rise two weight classes when he challenges WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in Las Vegas. The fight will air exclusively on DAZN.
One man who still keeps his eye on the sport is former two-division world champion Tim Bradley, who is now an on-air analyst for ESPN. Bradley recently gave his assessment of Canelo vs. Kovalev to Fight Hub.
“Canelo’s a smaller guy coming up to this weight class, man,” Bradley stated. “He’s gonna take that risk because Kovalev, Kovalev is kind of watered down a little bit. You know, he’s been a little long in the tooth, he’s a little long in the tooth so I think that’s the reason he’s taking that risk. He sees the opportunity to break Kovalev down to the body, that’s his specialty.”
In other light heavyweight action, a unification fight took place over the weekend, as Artur Beterbiev, the IBF champion, added the WBC belt to this ledger with a 10th round TKO win over Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Beterbiev is a powerful man, maybe the biggest puncher at light heavyweight, and Bradley wonders if Canelo would want such a fight.
“So, he’s ready to go up to 175lbs against a guy like that, but a guy like Beterbiev?” asked Bradley. “I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I don’t think he wants that. I don’t think Canelo wants that! That’s pain!”
WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol is undefeated and coming off of a win. Him against Beterbiev could be the main attraction at light heavyweight.
“Oh, that’s an interesting fight because Bivol is a bad boy,” Bradley said. “Man, I’ma give the slight edge to Beterbiev. Bivol is a smaller guy, man. He’s a small light heavyweight. Great fundamentals, good power, punches hard with both hands as well, he has the punching power that can probably get the respect of Beterbiev, but you saw [against Gvozdyk], nothing deterred that guy. Nothing stopped him from coming. He took it and kept coming, kept coming just willed him, just destroyed Gvozdyk. And I thought, honestly, I thought Gvozdyk was gonna be able to outbox him.”
Would Canelo ever dare to fight someone like Beterbiev?
First things first, he has to get past Kovalev on November 2nd. That fight alone is very dangerous, as Kovalev, at age 36, still figures to be a threat no matter how late the fight goes. Canelo has a load of options between 160 and 175 pounds.
