Canelo Alvarez appears to have his sights set on one man after he faces Terence Crawford next month.
The 35-year-old from Guadalajara is set to defend his undisputed super-middleweight championship against Crawford on Saturday September 13 at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Whilst he is faced with what could be one of the toughest tests of his accomplished career, Canelo could actually go on to face a reigning world champion that he has had ambitions of fighting for quite some time.
In an interview with The Ring Magazine, the Mexican icon expressed an interest in a rematch with former undisputed light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who handed him the second defeat of his career back in 2022.
“I hope I have the opportunity to have the rematch with Bivol, that’s the only fight at 175 I would really take but we’ll see.
I want to tell myself ‘Hey, you learned something from that fight’, what things you don’t need to do again. I have that thing in myself which says ‘Hey, you need to show that you’re a better fighter than him’.”
Canelo stepped up to challenge Bivol for the WBA light-heavyweight title in May of 2022, but ultimately fell short in his attempt at becoming a two-time world champion at 175lbs.
This fight could well be on the radar of both men in the near future, as Bivol’s promoter Eddie Hearn revealed in an interview with iFL TV that the Russian superstar would ‘really like’ to face Canelo again.
“Dmitry Bivol only really wants big fights, [Artur] Beterbiev 3, [David] Benavidez, the one he’d really like is Canelo.”
Bivol achieved his career-long dream of becoming undisputed light-heavyweight champion earlier this year when he defeated fellow countryman Artur Beterbiev in their much anticipated rematch.
The 34-year-old from Russia is being tipped to make his return to the ring during the early stages of next year, giving himself plenty of time to recover from a back operation that he underwent last week.