Tony Bellew has backed Saul Alvarez to get revenge over Dmitry Bivol if the pair fight again.
Alvarez is back in action this September at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas when he faces Gennady Golovkin in their trilogy clash.
Each of ‘Canelo’s’ WBA Super, IBF, WBO and WBC world titles at super-middleweight will be at stake when the two meet on September 17.
And Bellew, a former world champion himself who held the WBC cruiserweight championship, believes the Mexican superstar will have what it takes to beat Bivol – who outpointed him in a shock decision back in May when defending the WBA belt up at light-heavyweight.
Bivol (20-0, 11 KOs) has been ordered to defend his title against former super-middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez, while a fight with British light-heavyweight Joshua Buatsi has also been mooted.
Whilst speaking on the DAZN Boxing Show, Bellew said:
“Nobody saw it coming. I don’t care what people say, and I love the way people were angling and saying, ‘If the judges are fair, Bivol should win.'”
“No, stop. If you really thought Bivol was going to win, show us your bet slip.”
Bivol boxed in the UK, against Craig Richards, prior to his defeat of Alvarez. Richards was then outpointed in May by the aforementioned Buatsi and negotiations are understood to be underway for ‘Just Business’, an Olympian from 2016 in Rio, to get his long-awaited shot at a world title.
The WBA’s order of Bivol’s fight with Ramirez has thrown a slight spanner into those works, but Bellew believes it will all be irrelevant once Alvarez gets in with the Russian again.
“I draw back to some of the great nights Canelo has had. I look at the ‘GGG’ fight. I always thought with Canelo, ‘How are you going to beat him?’ You’re not going to chin him because nobody punches harder with a single punch than ‘GGG’. He took ‘GGG’s’ best right hand on the chin.”
Since the second fight with Golovkin, Alvarez had two more wins at super-middleweight and then stepped up to the 175-pound light-heavyweight limit and dethroned Sergey Kovalev for the WBO title – a belt he later relinquished before stepping back down in weight.
Bellew continued about a possible Bivol rematch:
“I think he [Canelo] wants it, but does he need it? Yes, he’s going to want to prove everyone wrong. Yes, he can do it, but does he actually need to do that?
“I actually don’t think he does to secure his resume. He’s got a great resume. He’s got an unbelievable legacy, but I think he’s going to want to do it.
“I actually do think he’ll beat Bivol in the rematch. I don’t know why, but I just think he’s going to do it.
“I just think, seeing the styles he’s overcome and the different sizes of the people he’s overcome, I just think he had an off night. Even great fighters have off nights.”