MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol Instant Reaction

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

Luke Thomas has you covered with an instant reaction to Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. If you're just joining us, Dimitri Bivol has defeated Canelo Alvarez via unanimous decision. And our own Brian Campbell had it basically, what was it, 117-111? What did you have it?

119-109. 119-111. No, 119-109, 11 rounds to one. So what am I saying? Dude, I can't do math. 119-109, it's late. 119-109 for 11 rounds to one. So what am I saying? Dude, I can't do math. 119-109, it's late. 119-109 for Dimitri Bivol. That's how he had it.

The judges all had it 115-113, seven rounds to five for Bivol. Dude, Bivol looked huge in this fight. We all knew the jab was going to be there. We all knew he had combination punching. All of that was what we thought it was. But what I had anticipated, when I thought some other folks had anticipated, as we begin, by the way, the UFC card for the main event here, what we had anticipated was that he was going to be able to make adjustments

and get inside the conventionality of Bivol. But his defense was on point. He never let himself get trapped along the ropes a whole lot. He did get hit with the uppercuts. Those were nice. But his jab was consistent, and apparently he held Canelo to a record low for him for any fight that's gone a full 12 rounds.

He was able to lower the output. Canelo had a hard time landing the right hand, especially other than as an uppercut, getting around the gloves. Bivol's defense was just super solid here. And so he was able to just weather what Canelo was able to do. Canelo having a hard time getting him between punches, having a hard time getting him at the end of punches. His combinations, his hand speed, his power, his durability, his ring craft, it was just way too much for Canelo, honestly. I really thought that Canelo was going to be able to make more adjustments than he did. And again, he had a really strong 10th round. I'd like to see what the judges' scorecards are that would give him the other four in this particular case.

But unanimous decision. Dimitri Bivol, man, I was asking BC about it. He's not here, but you really have to wonder what this does to the Triple G fight. It's not like it ruins it because this fight was at 175. That's not the weight class that they would compete in for that one. But nevertheless, does it take the shine off? Does it take the luster off? Is he going to want a rematch?

Is there going to be an appetite for a rematch? A lot of different questions here. I really don't know what the answer to that's going to be. I'm trying to watch you out of the corner of my eye. We have Justin Gaethje in the prep position. We have Dimitri Bivol talking to Chris Mannix here. I would love to hear what Canelo had to say, but he just seemed to be incapable of eliminating the jab of Bivol, getting inside of it enough, other than tells me what he said, I'd love to know. I can't hear it. A monumental moment in Canelo's career. I saw the fight with Mayweather. I was there. Here he is at 175, not getting it done. I think he wanted to unify,

obviously, in this weight class. But I had sort of thought, oh, the fight I wanted to see at 175 was Baterbief. I also have to say, like, Canelo was hitting him with hard shots, but they didn't really ever appear to really sting Bivol in any kind of dramatic way. Canelo impressively was able to withstand the offensive onslaught for Bivol. He was able to withstand big punches, big combinations from the guy. And again, I thought it was a little bit better about distance management as the fight wore on,

getting out of the way of the combinations, at least the majority of them, rather than sort of standing in front. He went from this guard early to a little bit more of an evasive position as the fight wore on. But it wasn't enough. He still couldn't get that.

The real problem was that Canelo was able to weather the punches pretty nicely. He was able to eliminate some of what Bivol was able to do as the fight went on. But he could never really get offense going. The left hook never seemed to transfer defense on Bivol. The right uppercut was nice, but not enough of it. And then the right hand around never really got there. And you could say, well, he was landing to the arms like he did against

Callum Smith, but against Callum Smith, he could never do anything except wait and absorb. All he could do was just kind of play the levels. Bivol was never really deterred by what Canelo was doing in that particular regard. So yeah, it was a tough fight, man. It was a tough fight. He just didn't have enough.

Long story short, he just did not have enough. He had some moments, about it. 10th round strong. A couple other moments along the way. The fact that he got five rounds is low-key miraculous. Are they talking about doing a rematch? What are they talking about? What are Bivol and Canelo talking about? And by the way, as an update, here comes Charles Oliveira walking to the cage here. Yo, Mikey, where's our producer Mikey? Mikey. Mikey? Mikey.

Mikey. Yes, of course I do. He said, they just did it. He said, yes, of course I want to do a rematch. Canelo said that. Yes. What about Bivol? They both agree.

So apparently Canelo wants a rematch, which of course is to be expected. Yeah, this is what I mean. He said, yeah, no problem. Yeah? They're both agreeing. Yeah, they're both agreeing to doing a rematch? Yeah, no problem? See, this is what I mean. Yeah, they're both agreed to do a rematch. Yeah, no problem. See, this is what I mean by the Triple G fight. It doesn't hurt the interest in the Triple G fight.

But it might push it back at a bare minimum. And then by pushing it back, then you don't know if it's ever going to happen again. Hell of a win by Dimitri Bivol. Hell of a win. I thought for sure Canelo was going to be craftier. He wasn't. That was very difficult for him.