Dmitry Bivol remains one of the best active fighters on the planet and now he has spoken about Saudi Arabian wishes as to who he should fight next.
After a time out to recover from a hand injury, Bivol had his first fight of the year on the Day of Reckoning card on December 23. It saw him dominate Lyndon Arthur over all 12 rounds to retain his WBA world light heavyweight title and add the IBO belt to his collection.
Bivol came out more aggressively than usual in the first few but failed to get rid of Arthur so instead cruised to a lopsided unanimous points win.
Last year, he had standout victories over Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Gilberto Ramirez to edge him higher up the pound-for-pound list and is now first in line to fight the winner Callum Smith versus Artur Beterbiev who fight in January.
That would be an undisputed fight and a mouth-watering contest between two fantastic light heavyweight champions.
However, the Saudi Chairman of the General Authority for Entertainment has now told Bivol they want him to fight someone else according to an interview with the man himself on Boxing Social.
“Turki Alalshikh asked me, let’s make the fight against Jai Opetaia.”
“But to be honest I told him I want to do everything in my weight division and then we will see, maybe I will move up but I couldn’t say let’s make a fight with him. I’m focused on my weight division to be honest for now.”