Duva Still Facing Tough Task in Getting Opponents For Bivol

By Steve Kim

This weekend from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a pair of light heavyweight title bouts takes place.

WBA belt-holder DmitryBivol faces Isaac Chilemba as the opener on HBO, and then in the night's main event, WBO titlist SergeyKovalev takes on Eleider Alvarez on a card that is promoted by Main Events.

As of now, it's still a bit difficult to get opponents willing to face the highly regarded Bivol, who in his last outing back on March 3rd stopped the sturdy Sullivan Barrera in 12 rounds.

"Obviously, it's tough because he's a very tough fighter and he's not that well known, yet," said the head of Main Events, which acts as the Stateside promoter of the 27-year old Bivol, who's lead promoter is World of Boxing.

"So that is a problem, although he's got a world title and there are some guys out there like Isaac Chilemba who are real fighters and would rise to an opportunity if it was presented to them."

There is already a lot of talk about one day matching Bivol and Kovalev in what would be a highly anticipated unification match-up.

Duva states, "Sergey is still the man, he's made it very clear he wants to unify the titles. He wants to try to do it again. And this time get all four. So he's been very explicit to me about my marching orders and, 'I want a unification fight next.'"

The other champions at 175 include Artur Beterbiev (IBF) and Adonis Stevenson(WBC).

"Beterbiev, Bivol, the winner of Stevenson-(Oleksandr Gvozdyk), those are the fights we want," said Duva. "But first he's got to get past Eleider Alvarez because that's not an easy out."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.