Dmitry Bivol admits that the news of his upcoming confirmed title defense took him by surprise.
The undefeated WBA light heavyweight champion will next face mandatory challenger and former WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez (44-0, 30KOs). The fight will headline a DAZN show on November 5 from the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The date and place were already on Bivol’s radar, but not on the opponent’s. He was led to believe that England’s Joshua Buatsi was next in line and was initially unsure what to make of the news that the WBA ordered him to fight Ramirez instead, ironically a fight he wanted years before he would finally would come to fruition.
“I wanted the Buatsi fight because they offered me the fight,” Bivol admitted to BoxingScene.com. “We had a date, we had an opponent, and we had a (location). So of course we wanted to fight Buatsi.
“Of course things change and I was a little confused as to when this fight is going to be or where. Now, I’m glad things turned out like this.”
Bivol (20-0, 11KOs) has held the WBA belt since November 2017, but he finally enjoyed a breakout performance in his last outing. The undefeated 31-year-old outpointed pound-for-pound king Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez on May 7 to successfully defend his title, all but guaranteeing a massive payday for his next outing.
Initially, the Matchroom Boxing co-promoter proposed that Bivol would face Buatsi (16-0, 13KOs), a 2016 Olympic bronze medalist and top-rated light heavyweight contender.
Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn even petitioned the WBA to allow a Bivol-Buatsi fight in lieu of a mandatory title defense ordered against Ramirez, the undefeated southpaw from Mazatlan, Mexico, who had already won two separate title eliminators at the time. The sanctioning body rejected the request and, instead, called a hearing for the exchange bid for August 21. Hearn contacted Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions soon after, and the two reached an agreement in time to avoid going down the auction route.
All was well with Bivol, who is happy to ride his current wave of momentum. Even better, she can now check off a wish list item.
“I wanted to fight Zurdo many, many years ago,” Bivol insisted. “Every fight, he thought, ‘Maybe my next opponent will be Southpaw.’ He talks about our fight, he is a good opponent. I want to fight an opponent like Zurdo. He had 44 wins and no losses. He is very good.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
