In an easy victory, WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs) piled up an early lead and then cruised to a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision win over an over-matched Umar Salamov (26-2, 19 KOs) on Saturday night at the
Uralets Arena in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
The judges scored it as follows:
Boxing 247 scored it for Bivol 119-109. Salamov fought well enough to deserve one round, but even that was pushing it because he was powerless and ineffective.
Salamov, 27, had nothing to offer, plodding forward the entire fight, eating jabs from Bivol and occasionally throwing wild looping shots with little power on them.
Bivol, 30, built up a wide lead through the first nine rounds behind his powerful jab and then let his foot off the gas pedal and cruised the last three rounds to a comprehensive victory over Salamov.
The victory for the Russian Bivol was his sixth consecutive defense of his World Boxing Association and one of his least entertaining. Bivol fought like he was intentionally fighting in first gear the entire fight, making the lowkey battle sleep-inducing.
Unlike his fellow Russian IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev, Bivol doesn’t try and score knockouts to entertain the fans.
Had this been Beterbiev in there tonight, he would have been all over Salamov, hitting him as hard as possible each round trying to entertain his boxing fans and get him out of there.
Salamov didn’t have the power to give Bivol any problems. The only positive thing that Salamov did was keep his guard up all night to block the many jabs that Bivol was throwing down the pipe.
Bivol will likely continue taking it easy with weak opposition like Salamov because if he can hang onto his WBA title, he’ll probably get a big life-changing payday fight against Canelo in which he’ll make millions.
Canelo is expected to come down to 175 to go after the champions in the division after he faces WBC cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu next May. If Bivol still has the WBA title in his possession, he’ll likely be the first target for Canelo.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is eager to try and set up a fight between his fighter #2 WBA Joshua Buatsi and Bivol. However, with the money Bivol can make fighting Canelo, it’s only evident that he will avoid defending against the dangerous-punching Buatsi like the plague.
If Bivol can get a fight against Canelo, he could walk away with a fortune, and it wouldn’t matter if he loses. As the saying goes, Bivol will cry all the way to the bank.
With that said, if Bivol fights the way he did tonight against Salamov, Canelo will easily beat. Bivol has to do more than throw jabs all night to beat a superstar like Canelo because the judges will filter that out and focus on the power shots the Mexican star is throwing.
