WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol will defend his title against Lenin Castillo on October 12 at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, live on DAZN in the US and on Sky Sports in the UK. Bivol (16-0 11 KOs) defends the strap for the sixth time in the Windy City, while Dominican challenger Castillo (20-1 15 KOs) has stopped 15 of his 20 victims.
Bivol-Castillo is part of a huge night of action in Chicago topped by the heavyweight debut of pound for pound star Oleksandr Usyk against unbeaten contender Tyrone Spong.
There’s more world title action on the card as Chicago’s Jessica McCaskill defends her WBA and WBC world super-lightweight titles against old foe Erica Farias.
Unbeaten super-middleweight talent Anthony Sims Jr returns to action against Morgan Fitch, Charles Conwell defends his USBA super-welterweight title against Patrick Day, an all-Chicago super-featherweight clash between Josh Hernandez and Giovanni Mioletti and a fourth pro outing for rising starlet Otha Jones III.
Very disappointing fight for the Russian. Castillo has fought no one and has a pumped-up record. This is a mismatch. I would like to see Bivol drop down to super middleweight and challenge Callum Smith. Neither the Russian nor the Brit have anybody brave enough to fight them at 168, so they may as well fight each other.
Bivol – Castillo is a hard to understand match-up. Bivol has come up fast and already faced and beaten much better opposition. However, the last three wins by Bivol all came by UD, and he may want to work on some things before taking on higher quality opposition. I assume that he will blow out Castillo and I hope that we will see him in the ring with someone like Eleider Alvarez, Gilberto Ramirez or Jesse Hart, with the winner taking on the winner of Gvozdyk – Beterbiev.
Usyk vs. Spong is a similar mismatch for me. After everything Usyk has shown us already, it was expected that he would challenge at least a top 40 fighter. Spong is technically two levels below Usyk. Usyk will have no problem to outbox him – the only question will be whether he can KO him too.
Questionable match ups but the fights could still be interesting and will answer more questions about Bivol and Usyk.