By Daniel Gonzalez

Chicago Illinois- After dominating Lenin Castillo (20-3-1, 15 KOs) over 12 rounds in his 6th title defense, WBA Light Heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs) stated in no uncertain terms, “I want to fight the winner of Gvozdyk-Beterbiev or Canelo-Kovalev.”  He followed that by stating, “I can fight them now because I won today. Why can’t I get the winner of Gvozdyk-Beterbiev? We are in the same division.”.

In the co-feature bout to the Usyk v. Witherspoon clash, the Russian native boxed flawlessly against the rugged Dominican 2008 former olympian.  The judges all scored the bout widely for Bivol, 120-107 and 119-108 twice.  Castillo was not only a game opponent, he was physically the much bigger man in the ring.  He had advantages in both height and reach over the the champion Bivol, but Bivol’s superior boxing skill and ring generalship were the story in the fight. The Compubox punch stats had Bivol landing a total of 188 of 652 punches to 98 of 429 for Castillo.  The most glaring advantage for Bivol was jabs landed, which was 118 to 21.   

In the 6th round Bivol scored a knockdown of Castillo with a perfectly placed straight right counter over a lazy jab, but it appeared only to be a flash knockdown.  Castillo was caught flush on the chin while loosing his balance, but was able to regroup quickly and really did not show a sign of having been hurt.

There is no question that Bivol is an extremely skilled boxer, but he has not scored a knockout in his last 4 fights.  The same cannot be said of his IBF and WBC Light Heavyweight counterparts, Arthur Beterbiev (14-0, 14 KOs) and Oleksandr Gvodzyk (17-0, 14 KOs).  Beterbiev has knocked out 14 of the 14 opponents he has faced as a professional, while Gvodzyk has disposed of 10 of his last 11 opponents inside the distance.  The Russian Beterbiev and Ukrainian Gvodzyk are scheduled to face off next week at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia in a much anticipated unification bout.

It would seem that the winner of that matchup would be in the driver’s seat in the division, but Canelo Alvarez is coming up and could possibly shift the power structure of the division if he can pull off a win November 2nd agains Sergey Kovalev.   

The Light Heavyweight has been dominated by Eastern Europeans as of late, but for some reason Canelo Alvarez wants to get in the mix.  Can Bivol be the man in the division with these other dangerous fighters looming?  Is he big enough?

DAZN’s Sergio Mora commented that Bivol is more suited to be a super middleweight.  He cam to this analysis based on Bivol’s inability to get his opponents out of there inside the distance.  Is Mora right about Bivol or will the boxer standout over the punchers in this deep division?

Daniel Gonzalez is a Senior Boxing Writer. Dan writes for many publications including Boxing Action Magazine, www.BoxingAction24.com and www.SideStepBoxing.com

Photo courtesy of Ed Mulholland/ Matchroom Boxing USA