All four major 175lb world champions will see action over the next three weeks. The light heavyweight frenzy starts tonight WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who has recently been elevated to ‘super champion’ status, taking on Lenin Castillo at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago. WBC and IBF kings Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Artur Beterbiev meet next weekend in a unification battle, and WBO ruler Sergey Kovalev faces Canelo Alvarez on November 2.
Assuming 50:1 favorite Bivol can dispose of Castillo as expected, unification fights are on his radar in 2020.
On Gvozdyk-Beterbiev:
“I don’t know who wins that fight. I don’t like to make predictions! But it’s a very good fight and I’m looking forward to it.”
On Kovalev-Canelo:
“It’s an interesting fight, it’s a big challenge for both. Kovalev is one of the best at 175lbs and is the bigger man, but Canelo is a great fighter, he’s younger and he’s strong too, nobody knows what will happen, we just have to wait and watch.”
On fighting Canelo:
“It’s a good fight for me. I’m taller than him, I have good boxing skills and enough experience to box a guy like him. He’s one of the best guys from middleweight, he’s not a heavyweight, if he was it would be difficult to talk about but he’s coming from two divisions below so why not? I can also make 168lbs. I have talked about this many times because I am not a big guy so I could make super middleweight for a big fight.”
On his future plans:
“I want to make my mark in boxing history and to do this you have to fight the best. I am grateful that my team have found for me good boxers to fight. Of course, I want to fight against the other champions but sometimes you cannot do it because they are busy, but we have had good fights and I am happy with that.”
Bivol-Castillo can be seen live on DAZN in the US and on Sky Sports in the UK.