Part of being successful in business is being able to look ahead, so it comes as no surprise that Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn is already visualizing fights for next year.
Earlier this month, Dmitry Bivol surprised many casual fans by taking down Canelo Alvarez. Moving forward, it appears that Alvarez will fight Gennadiy Golovkin in September and participated in a bout overseas in December. Meanwhile, Bivol will look to defend his titles this fall and potentially fight for the undisputed light heavyweight title in the winter. If both fighters finish out the year without enduring a loss, Hearn believes that Alvarez will attempt to avenge that loss in May 2023.
“We sat down with Dmitry Bivol and his team and said, ‘Look, you’re going to defend your world championship around the same time, in September, and then you’re gonna rematch Canelo Alvarez in May,’” Hern said during a recent episode The DAZN Boxing Show.
In interim, Hearn believes that Bivol will fight Callum Smith or Joshua Buatsi next.
“Obviously, Joshua Buatsi won over the weekend. That’s a fight we’d be interested to make as well. You’ve got Callum Smith there, another one of our fighters that we represent. We’ve got plenty of options for [Bivol] in terms of voluntary defenses,” Hearn added.
“He wants to become undisputed, but at the same time he wants the rematch because that rematch is going to make him a helluva lot of money. Again, that’s one of the biggest fights in boxing. We’ll sit down with [Bivol co-promoter] World of Boxing and [manager] Vadim [Kornilov] and plan out the future for Dmitry Bivol, but he’s in a great position.”
