The undisputed light heavyweight championship is not as doomed as certain people have described it, according to the manager of Dmitry Bivol.
Vadim Kornilov, the longtime handler of the WBA 175-pound champion, offered a highly optimistic prognosis of a potential undisputed showdown between Bivol and WBO, WBC, IBF champion Artur Beterbiev, despite the fact that prominent people associated with that fight have essentially described it as a nonstarter.
WBC head Mauricio Sulaiman recently stated he would not allow Bivol to fight for his company’s belt, which would be needed for the undisputed distinction to be at stake. Sulaiman had previously stated that Russian or Belarusian boxers could not fight for any WBC belts because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Sulaiman has curiously exempted Beterbiev from that edict because Beterbiev has Canadian citizenship; Beterbiev has lived in Quebec for more than a decade.
More recently Bob Arum, the promoter of Beterbiev, said he would not attempt to make a fight involving Beterbiev, citing virtually the same reasons as Sulaiman.
But Kornilov, in a recent interview, suggested there was serious monetary support for that fight coming from the Middle East. He also implied that Sulaiman and Arum’s contentions were not impediments to the fight being made, saying that “politics” are “not important.”
“Right now everybody supports the idea of the fight happening,” Kornilov told SecondsOut.com. “You’ve got two boxers that want it. All the politics, I think that’s not important. The money is actually coming together, that’s what’s important.
“Yes, there’s a lot of interest from the Middle East, from Abu Dhabi, from Saudi. They’re interested in this type of fight happening, which I think will help materialize the fight in the near future.”
Bivol, 32, last fought in November, when he defeated Gilberto Ramirez by unanimous decision. A rematch with Canelo, whom he defeated last spring, was thought to be in the works for the fall but that idea now appears to be in jeopardy.
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.