Saul Canelo Alvarez took the second loss of his career over the weekend against Dmitry Bivol, his first defeat since his main event fight against Floyd Mayweather nearly a decade ago.
On Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the Mexican warrior took on the tough challenge of fighting against a much taller and bigger Dmitry Bivol, the Russian boxer who entered this fight ranked #2 in his light heavyweight division.
For most boxing fans who watched Saturday's fight, Bivol was a clear favorite throughout the fight, dominating almost every round. Even Canelo's boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, gave Alvarez just three 3 out of 12 rounds to the Mexican fighter.
However, Alvarez himself felt like the judges didn't give Canelo the number of rounds he deserved, in a fight where Canelo believes Bivol won no more than 5 rounds at best.
Alvarez stepped into uncharted territory for him by moving up in weight to fight Bivol, though Canelo still remains the undisputed champion in the super middleweight class.
So the question now is: What is next for Canelo?
The Mexican warrior said after the fight that he will take this loss as a lesson learned. However, he didn't seem to regret going up in weight for this type of challenge, as he says he is a fighter that always wants to get out of his comfort zone and face the very best.
"I always like to learn from things, I'm always going out looking for difficult fights, I'm always up for taking on new challenges."" Alvarez said. "Today, I feel like I learned a lot, and I'm going to show you this in the upcoming fights. I feel like I can come out of this fight with my head held high because I gave the best of me in a different weight class. I'm looking for challenges that take me out of my comfort zone."
Many in the boxing world now believe that his next challenge is a rematch with the Russian fighter sometime in the future… after his plan to fight Gennadiy Golovkin for a trilogy was ruined by an impressive Bivol performance.
