LAS VEGAS — In one of the biggest upsets of boxing in recent years, Russian fighter Dmitry Bivol defeated Mexican fighter Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez on Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
CBS Sports reports Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs), a four-division champion, landed a career-low 84 punches overall 12 rounds as Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) relied on his defense and accurate punching to pull the upset via unanimous decision. All three judges scored it 115-113 for Bivol.
This was the second loss for Alvarez, who had only previously lost to Floyd Mayweather in 2013. According to CompuBox, Bivol dominated the fight landing 36% of his power punches and needed to land just four jabs per round to tame Alvarez, who landed in single digits in 10 of 12 rounds.
Yahoo Sports reports that Alvarez went off as roughly a 5-1 favorite. He said he felt Bivol’s power, but shrugged off the loss.
“He’s a great champion,” Alvarez said. “Sometimes in boxing, you win and sometimes you lose. I have no excuses. He won the fight.”
Most of the damage that Alvarez was able to connect on was to the left shoulder and arm of Bivol, but after the hard punches, he looked slow and powerless.
"I felt his power. As you can see from my arm, he beat my arm up but not my head," Bivol said.
Bivol landed 152 of 710 power shots compared to just 84 of 495 for Alvarez, according to Yahoo Sports.
This loss knocked Álvarez down from his position as boxing's pound-for-pound champion.
In front of his disappointed fans, Alvarez shared hopes of wanting to exercise the rematch because that was in his contract for Saturday's fight.
"I think I did enough to win the fight, but hey, now what I want is a rematch because this is not going to stay like this," he said.
Bivol heard Alvarez's words and was quick to respond.
"Of course, I'll give him a rematch, but from now on they must treat me with respect, they must treat me like a world champion," said Bivol.
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