Reasons why Canelo lost
For the first time in nearly a decade, Canelo Alvarez did not have a magical night in Las Vegas.
On Saturday, the Mexican lost by unanimous decision to Russian Dmitry Bivol in his bid to win the World Boxing Association semi-completeweight championship.
Despite a good start to the fight, Canelo Alvarez gradually fell into Bivol’s game and the Russian won the rounds en route to his upset win on identical 115-113 scorecards.
The weight change
“A good small weight doesn’t beat a good big weight.”
Canelo had already had success in his first venture at semi-complete weight when he knocked out Sergey Kovalev in 11 rounds to take the WBO title from him, but the conditions were very different because the Russian, then 36, had suffered a knockout loss recently and was coming off two wars against Eleider Alvarez and Anthony Yarde, while Bivol was undefeated and coming off a solid campaign of eight successful defenses of his title.
The battle was different to Kovalev, so Canelo was more aggressive from the beginning in search of owning the ring, as reflected in the official scorecards that saw him win unanimously the first four rounds, from there it was all for the Russian, who with his jab kept the distance and began to put combinations that punished Canelo.
The scorecards tell the same story, Bivol won from 5 to 8 and from 10 to 12, to take the final scorecards 115-113.
Canelo could not get rid of the jab
Bivol took advantage of his height and distance advantage to keep the Mexican away, according to CompuBox, Bivol landed 46 of the 418 jabs he threw (11 percent), while the Mexican could barely land 10 of the 229 jabs he threw (4 percent), an abysmal difference.
The jab opened the door for Bivol’s combinations, who ended up beating Canelo in all categories: total punches (152 to 84) and power punches (106 to 266).
Canelo’s desperation to seek the KO
At the end of the fight, Bivol made it clear that Canelo’s biggest mistake was looking for the knockout.
“He has good speed, good power, I think the mistake is that he just threw power punches, trying to knock me out,” Bivol stated, “I felt his punch, look at my arms, I couldn’t move my arms.”
However, power doesn’t always translate into victories in boxing and Canelo found that out on Saturday when he couldn’t find the miracle he was looking for in the late rounds against a Bivol who looked very solid on top of the ring at his natural weight.
Bivol’s good defense
According to Compubox, Canelo did not outbox Bivol in any of the 12 rounds, the closest he came was in round 9 when he managed to hit Bivol 10 times but the Russian hit him 12 times, that round 9 the judges gave it to Canelo.
In total, Canelo landed 84 punches, his lowest amount in a 12 round fight, even less than the 117 he connected in his 2013 loss to Floyd Mayweather, in fact he only surpassed 10 punches connected in two rounds (round 9 and 11), in all the others his maximum was 8, that’s a tremendous achievement to be credited to Bivol’s solid defense.
