well at least he is honest..though facing cleverly is still a step up though
Bivol: I'm Not Ready for Ward-Kovalev Winner, Stevenson Just Yet
By Keith Idec
Dmitry Bivol’s ambition will lead the undefeated light heavyweight toward fighting a relatively recent world championship challenger with three times as much professional experience Saturday night.
The 26-year-old Bivol is 10-0, has knocked out eight of his opponents and already owns the WBA’s interim 175-pound championship. Despite Cedric Agnew’s advantage in experience over him (29-2, 15 KOs), Kyrgyzstan’s Bivol is the favorite over the 30-year-old Agnew to win their 10-round, non-title fight on the Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev undercard in Las Vegas.
If Bivol beats Houston’s Agnew, he told BoxingScene.com he’ll “almost” be ready to fight any of the three top light heavyweights in boxing. Even Bivol acknowledges that if he wins Saturday night, he’ll need some more experience before facing elite light heavyweights like Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs) and Adonis Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs).
Ward is the IBF/WBA/WBO champion. Stevenson owns the WBC title.
“I think I’m at that point where I’m almost ready,” Bivol said. “I’m not gonna fight them just yet, but I’m very close to fighting the big names. I’m not gonna say those names. I’m gonna see what happens after this fight. But what I want is to fight the guys that have all the main titles, all the regular titles. That’s what interests me the most.”
Bivol is more likely to face Nathan Cleverly in his following fight if he wins against Agnew. Wales Cleverly (30-3, 16 KOs), who Kovalev stopped in the fourth round to win the WBO title in August 2013, now owns the WBA world light heavyweight title (Ward is the WBA’s “super” light heavyweight champion).
“I think my career is at the point where I’m ready to fight for the title, to fight for the regular title,” Bivol said, referring to Cleverly. “I’m ready for the big fights, against the big names. And I also think I was lucky to have a great team – coaches, manager, promoter, because we’ve worked very hard all together to make this progression happen. I’m very happy about it. And as I said, I’m very close to being ready for the big fights.”
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