Eddie Hearn doesn’t think it will be feasible to make Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez happy.
The Matchroom Boxing head honcho has his focus on the Mexican’s trilogy outing against Gennadiy Golovkin.
Alvarez, who is going into the fight against ‘GGG’ on September 17 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the back of a shock defeat to Dmitry Bivol, is keen for the rematch against the Russian light-heavyweight.
But Hearn isn’t confident that he will be able to make the return, for the WBA belt up at 175 pounds, by next May, which is when the superstar wants it to happen.
Bivol was recently ordered by the WBA to face Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, who is promoted by Golden Boy. Hearn, like Golden Boy, has a broadcasting rights deal with DAZN.
On The DAZN Boxing Show, Hearn said:
“Zurdo is being called as a mandatory but we already put in an exemption for Bivol to fight Joshua Buatsi, so that will be reviewed by the WBA either way.”
“He’s going to have to fight one or both of those guys before Canelo Alvarez and they’re both very dangerous fights.”
Talks were in progress for the aforementioned fight between Bivol and Buatsi before the WBA ordered the Ramirez fight.
Buatsi, last in action at the O2 Arena in London in May, beat Craig Richards in an official eliminator for the WBA crown, but he has now accepted an invitation from the IBF to engage in negotiations for a final eliminator for Artur Beterbiev’s title against Haitian-born Canadian Jean Pascal.
Hearn expects Bivol to return to the ring by October or November, but that would not leave much time for him to take on another fight before an Alvarez rematch, were it to happen in May:
“Buatsi is a great talent. Gilberto Ramirez is a great talent as well, a former world champion. ‘Canelo’ has made it clear he wants to fight Gennadiy Golovkin and then he wants to rematch Dmitry Bivol in May, so we’re a little bit up against time.
“I would think October, early November is realistic for Dmitry Bivol’s next fight [and] we’re talking to World of Boxing [Bivol’s co-promoters].
“Obviously, he’s under contract to us, so we’ll be planning out his next fight. Whether that’s Buatsi or whether that’s Ramirez, it will be one of those guys next.”