Opponents will measure victories – Newspaper Kommersant No. 205 (7406) dated 11/03/2022

On Saturday, Abu Dhabi will host one of the most intriguing fights of the year in professional boxing with the participation of the Russian boxer. Light heavyweight champion of the World Boxing Association (WBA) (up to 79.4 kg) Dmitry Bivol, who in May won a thunderous victory over the considered almost invulnerable Saul Alvarez, will meet with another Mexican – Gilberto Ramirez. And it’s not a fact that Bivol’s new opponent, who has won all 44 fights in his career, has excellent anthropometry and a hard blow, is less dangerous than the previous one.

The World Boxing Association, advertising the central fight of the show in Abu Dhabi, did not puzzle over what “sign” to come up with for him for too long. “The Battle of the Undefeated” – that’s what she called it. That’s right: for two, the participants in the duel had 64 fights and 64 victories in them, 44 – with Gilberto Ramirez, 20 – with Dmitry Bivol.

But in fact, all the charm, all the intricacies of this confrontation, a simple statement of the fact that it brought together two boxers who have not yet had a chance to lose, even end their professional fights in a draw, does not explain. Everything is much more interesting.

Dmitry Bivol turned from just a celebrity into a celebrity of the highest caliber in May of this year, when in Las Vegas he created a sensation that put dozens, if not hundreds of experts who were sure that everyone knew about boxing, who believed that his absolute modern standard, his almost that Saul Alvarez is God and there is nothing to argue about, to a dead end. Bivol, faced with the Mexican genius, dealt with him in such a way that this definition – “standard” – somehow completely ceased to suit Alvarez: the opponent appeared in the ring as a fighter much more intelligent, subtle, flexible.

In such situations, in which Dmitry Bivol found himself after that match, a boxer is usually supposed to bathe in the hot rays of glory and have a fight more or less passing. But this case is absolutely not a classic, because it’s not a fact that Gilberto Ramirez, even though he never went crazy, like Alvarez, millions of loyal fans, the rival for the Russian is simpler than the previous one.

It’s not about the numbers that make up an impeccable track record. The point is in its content, in what stands behind the numbers. Firstly, behind them is a huge experience – and experience, including top fights, including with classy opponents. Gilberto Ramirez’s former peak was the world super middleweight title (up to 76.2 kg) he won six years ago, which he won and defended against such famous opponents as Arthur Abraham and Jesse Hart. And having jumped into the next category in 2019, Ramirez won it five times in a row, and all five times by knockout, moreover, it cannot be said that he was carefully and carefully led to the candidate status, laying pliable, like feather pillows, “bags”: the same Sullivan Barrera and Dominique Bözel are elite, strong boxers.

Secondly, behind the numbers is the unusual and inconvenient, perhaps, Gilberto Ramirez in terms of style and banal anthropometry. The degree of delight about the persuasiveness with which Dmitry Bivol dealt with Saul Alvarez slightly reduces the reminder that the boxing genius he actually destroyed is a “natural” middleweight who, against the background of a normal, let’s say, light heavyweight like Bivol, seems quite low. And height, arm span is also an important factor in boxing.

In this sense, with Gilberto Ramirez, everything is different. With his height under 190 cm, he is almost half a head taller than Dmitry Bivol and, in principle, in terms of texture, he does not even look like a light heavyweight, but like a “cruiser”, a representative of the first heavy weight (up to 90.7 kg). But the thing is that Ramirez’s manner slightly breaks the pattern: the long-armed Mexican prefers rapprochement, her break, that is, approximately the same as Alvarez, to maneuvers at a long distance. And it was clear that this feature unpleasantly surprised some of the boxers who ran into the long-armed Mexican, unbalanced – along, of course, with a sharp blow from Ramirez, which he knows how to throw, and being close to the opponent, and at the distance that he in vain considers relatively safe.

Alexey Dospekhov