By Thomas Gerbasi
If Kyrgyzstan native Dmitry Bivol was looking for a way to truly introduce himself to the world in his fourth fight in the United States, the interim WBA light heavyweight champion couldn’t have picked a better time and place than on the June 17 card featuring the top two 175-pounders in the world, Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev.
“Yes, exactly, this is the best time and the best show for me to show myself to American fans and it’s every important to show good boxing,” Bivol said through a translator at the Wild Card West Boxing Gym in Los Angeles, where the 26-year-old now prepares for his fights with his longtime trainer Gennady Mashyanov.
These days, it’s almost required for top Eastern European fighters to pack their bags and come to the United States if they want to take their careers to the next level, even if that means leaving family behind.
“Of course, I miss my family and my family misses me, but when you have a goal, you can go through any barrier, and I have my goal, so I can go through it,” said Bivol, who has a wife and two-year-old son back home in St. Petersburg, Russia. “It’s not a problem for me.”
Fortunately, Bivol is not entering uncharted waters, because with fighters like Kovalev, Gennady Golovkin, Vasyl Lomachenko and Aleksandr Usyk all making that move, it has shown Bivol what’s possible, even if he’s kept things in the gym largely unchanged since beginning to train in Southern California.
“We didn’t adjust anything much, other than sparring partners,” he said. “We have our camp developed and our special techniques for our preparation and we keep these techniques because they work, so we don’t change it much. Just maybe sparring partners for a particular opponent.”
On June 17, the opponent is Cedric Agnew, a former world title challenger who was stopped in seven rounds by Kovalev in 2014. Since then, he’s gone 3-1, lifting his record to 29-2, but most expect Bivol to continue his unbeaten ways against Illinois native. The question is, does he step on the gas pedal in order to make a statement and better the main eventer’s performance against Agnew?
“Honestly, I don’t have any pressure or a specific goal to look better than Kovalev with Agnew,” Bivol said. “I have my plan with my trainer and my goal is to keep this plan. And if I can do that, I’m pretty sure the fight is going to be very good, very interesting.”
That’s a great description for Bivol’s pro career thus far – very good and very interesting. Just 10-0 as a pro, Bivol was a stellar amateur who posted a reported 268-15 record, allowing him to move fast in the punch for pay ranks. By 2016, he won the interim WBA title in his seventh fight by defeating previously unbeaten Felix Valera, and he’s since defended that title twice with knockouts of Robert Berridge and Samuel Clarkson.
And with Eastern Europeans like Ukraine’s Lomachenko and Usyk both securing world titles with less than 10 fights as well, it’s clear that it’s a new world in the sport.
“I think there are a couple of reasons,” Bivol said. “First of all, not that long ago, there was no Russia, there was a few different parts, it was a big country, and in USSR, there was no professional boxing. There was only amateur. Now in Russia and in all countries that used to be USSR, professional boxing is getting more popular every year, and it’s a young sport, so more and more young guys are going into the sport and all roads are open to other countries where they can show themselves.”
That’s why Bivol is here, ready to show himself to the world and make a mark in it. No, he’s not calling for Kovalev or Ward yet, but he does have his sights on the man with the full WBA title, Nathan Cleverly.
“A career is like a staircase, and Kovalev and Ward, this is the big step,” he said. “I’m not there to jump a couple of steps forward yet. I have time. So I think it’s going to be better for me to move toward Cleverly and then think about Kovalev and Ward.”
And while it remains to be seen if he can tackle and topple the big names, he’s got the blood in his veins that’s leading him in the right direction.
“All the fighters are different in Russia, but the main thing is that the Russian guys have their goals, and their goals are very strong, and when they come to the U.S., they want to show everything,” he said. “They want to show the best they can even more.”