Eddie Hearn isn’t convinced that Dmitry Bivol will get a shot at Artur Beterbiev for the undisputed light heavyweight championship, at least in his next ring outing.
Hearn, the head of Matchroom Boxing, which promotes WBA 175-pound titlist Bivol, believes Bivol’s Russian compatriot, the WBC, WBO, and IBF champion Beterbiev, will not be available at least until the second half of 2023.
Beterbiev, Hearn pointed out, is likely to face Anthony Yarde in the first quarter of next year. Thereafter, Beterbiev would be preoccupied with Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. On that view, Hearn believes Beterbiev would not be ready to fight until late summer or early fall. For Hearn, that means it might behoove Bivol, rather than waiting around, to engage himself, in the interim, in a potentially lucrative rematch with Canelo Alvarez; Bivol defeated the Mexican superstar in May via unanimous decision.
Hearn reiterated his desire for a Bivol-Alvarez rematch Saturday night, in Abu Dhabi, after Bivol notched a comprehensive point win over Gilberto Ramirez in a 12-round light heavyweight defense of his belt. Hearn made it clear afterward that Bivol would be remiss to dismiss a lucrative rematch with Canelo Alvarez, since a Beterbiev fight, if it can even be made, won’t be up for discussion until much later.
Bivol himself has repeatedly said that he is not as keen on a rematch with Alverez as he is in a showdown with Beterbiev. Alvarez is coming off a decisive points win over Gennadiy Golovkin in a 168-pound undisputed title match in September.
“It’s pretty obvious that Dmitry Bivol is about legacy and about belts,” Hearn said during the post-fight press conference. “And he wants to become undisputed. That is his absolute main focus. Obviously from my side we want to make the biggest fights possible. The Canelo Alvarez rematch is a very big fight. But the priority for Dmitry is to be undisputed.
“However, if Beterbiev fights Yarde in January or February, and then goes into Ramadan, then he probably wouldn’t be ready to fight Dmitry until June, July or whatever.”
Alvarez, who has said his top priority is to fight Bivol again, recently underwent surgery for his left wrist. Alvarez initially said that he expected he could return to the ring next September, in which case that would throw Hearn off his proposed schedule for Bivol. But Hearn indicated that he spoke to Alvarez after his surgery and is optimistic that Alvarez could return to the ring by next May.
There are other considerations to factor in for a potential Bivol-Beterbiev unification, namely that such a fight would require significant collaboration between rival outfits, no small task in this era of corporatized boxing. While Bivol is backed by Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, which has an output deal with DAZN, Beterbiev is promoted by Top Rank, which is contractually obligated to showcase its fighters on ESPN. Bob Arum, the head of Top Rank, indicated earlier this year that he would not allow Beterbiev to fight on DAZN.