{"id":549652,"date":"2025-11-05T01:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549652\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T01:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:24:16","slug":"dmitry-bivol-only-wants-big-fights-upon-return-eyes-canelo-benavidez-beterbiev-opetaia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549652\/","title":{"rendered":"Dmitry Bivol only wants big fights upon return, eyes Canelo, Benavidez, Beterbiev, Opetaia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/dmitry-bivol-392\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dmitry Bivol<\/a> is on the mend and recovering from surgery to repair a herniated disc in his back. <\/p>\n<p>The Ring and unified light heavyweight champion Bivol aims to return to the boxing ring in the first quarter of 2026. When he does, &#8220;Dima&#8221; doesn\u2019t want to take the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met with Dmitry and had dinner with him recently,\u201d Matchroom Boxing head Eddie Hearn told <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Ring<\/a>. \u201cThe big thing and key with him is that he just wants big fights, big money, and true tests. David Benavidez and Artur Beterbiev are true tests, but they are very dangerous fights. He&#8217;s a chill guy, but he&#8217;s not interested in a random fight. He wants Canelo Alvarez, Benavidez, Beterbiev, maybe Jai Opetaia. He just wants the challenges. I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll have him back in a big fight soon.\u201d<br \/>Bivol (24-1, 12 KOs) fought just once in 2025. <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/bivol-claims-undisputed-light-heavyweight-titles-after-another-razor-close-beterbiev-duel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The 34-year-old Russian avenged his 2024 majority decision defeat against Beterbiev<\/a> in February by unanimous decision, becoming the undisputed champion at 175 pounds. By April, <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/bivol-to-vacate-wbc-title-plans-to-proceed-with-beterbiev-trilogy-fight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bivol would end up vacating his WBC title<\/a> instead of pursuing a fight against interim champion David Benavidez because it was believed at the time that Bivol would face Beterbiev in a trilogy. <br \/>In July, the IBF ordered Bivol to face mandatory challenger and No. 1-ranked contender Michael Eifert, and by August, <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/news\/dmitry-bivol-out-for-remainder-of-2025-following-back-surgery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bivol went under the knife to take care of the lingering back injuries<\/a> that had been nagging him for nearly 10 years, he said. <br \/>Bivol is The Ring\u2019s No. 4-ranked pound-for-pound fighter and was the 2021 Fighter of the Year after beating <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/saul-alvarez-77\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canelo Alvarez<\/a> and <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/ringmagazine.com\/en\/fighters\/gilberto-ramirez-91\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gilberto \u201cZurdo\u201d Ramirez<\/a>, both by unanimous decision. <br \/>Manouk Akopyan is The Ring\u2019s lead writer. Follow him on <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ManoukAkopyan\">X<\/a> and <a class=\"underline hover:text-redColor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/manoukakopyan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a>: @ManoukAkopyan.<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dmitry Bivol is on the mend and recovering from surgery to repair a herniated disc in his back.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-549652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115494483578290061","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}