ALL BUSINESS
Elliot Worsell gets to know Dmitry Bivol, the latest formidable talent to emerge from the Eastern Bloc
Get to know Dmitry Bivol – the latest brooding beast from the Eastern Bloc
WHATEVER happened to Gary Cooper, the strong silent type?” asked Tony Soprano during one of his many therapy sessions. “That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do.”
The question was an alpha male’s attempt to deflect his own problems and distance himself from men who see therapy as the answer to theirs. But, forgetting the American ideal, this question is one that can also be applied to boxing, as the need to be noticed and marketable has led to many of the sport’s participants changing tack, acting up, creating personas and doing away with the mystery. Strong and silent, we’re told, no longer gets the job done.
There are exceptions, however. Recently, for instance, we’ve seen a new breed of hero emerge from the Eastern Bloc, particularly Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. More important than ever, this hero harks back to a time when less was more and the need to produce inside the ring outweighed the need to make controversial social media posts or talk trash. Stoic, these men emphasise substance over style, action over noise.
One could argue the movement started when Sergey Kovalev was knocking out lightheavyweights and Gennady Golovkin was doing the same to middleweights. Together, they struck fear into the opposition without having to make empty threats and endeared themselves to fans despite speaking only rudimentary English. Subtle and savage, by the time “Triple G” was telling opponents to be “good boys” and predicting a “big drama show”, a new hero had landed. More followed. Ukrainians Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk were next to burst on the scene and they too refused to speak ill of opponents and garnered popularity due to their brilliance inside the ring and charisma away from it. As characters, Lomachenko is straight from The Matrix and Usyk, as proven earlier this month in Manchester, is boxing’s take on a hooded member of the Sith. You have Lomachenko’s warm, pleasant smile, and Usyk’s maniacal, gap-toothed alternative. If they never say another word, it would hardly matter. “I am feel. I am very feel.” ³
Meanwhile, Russians Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, a couple of belt-holders with undefeated records and thousand-yard stares, continue the tradition of the strong, silent type at light-heavyweight.
Bivol, the current WBA champion, was in London a couple of months ago as part of countryman Alexander Povetkin’s encourage, but, interestingly, made no effort to steal limelight. Barely recognisable in a striped sweatshirt and jeans, he moved in the shadows of the media circus, always trailing a short distance behind the leading pack, and appeared content to blend in and go unnoticed.
“Sorry, my English is not good,” said Bivol, who, when Boxing News eventually pinned him down, needed to be told that a man with limited English but a greater ability to think – and fight – is preferable to the alternative.
In conversation, he smiled throughout, laughed when unable to understand a question, and reminded you of his danger only when describing the act of fighting other human beings as being “like a game”.
“When I go to the gym, I feel better,” he said. “I can speak with good people who think about their health and their discipline. These are not people who drink all the time and live badly.
“Now, I want to be remembered in history. Of course, that’s my goal. I know I have a talent which I should realise. I want to make a good life for my children and for all my family. That is my main goal. I also want to make great fights for people.”
When Dmitry Bivol speaks of a “good life” he is not referring to a better life, nor an escape from great hardship, but a life similar to the one he enjoyed – yes, enjoyed – growing up. Born in Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan to a Moldovan father and Korean mother, Bivol began boxing at six years of age, uprooted to Russia with his family at 11, and was, during this time, a happy child. Boxing, he stresses, wasn’t a vehicle used to break free. It was merely something – a sport – he liked to do.
“I grew up with my family – a good family,” he said. “I have a mother and a father and they both worked. I went to a good school. I didn’t have an uncomfortable or harsh life like most of the champions. I just enjoyed my life growing up.
“When I came to boxing, I enjoyed boxing. It was the same with Russia. When I came to Russia, I liked Russia very much. I like Russian people. There are many nationalities in Russia. I feel comfortable there.”
Competing for Russia as an amateur, Bivol won a bronze medal at the Youth World Championships in 2008 and a gold medal at the 2013 World Combat Games. Along the way, he was raised on a diet of Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jnr fights, before later developing a fondness for “Sugar” Ray Leonard, and his amateur record, at the time of turning pro in 2014, comprised 268 wins and just 15 defeats. The more he won, the further he believed he could go. “Of course, every time before a fight I get nervous,” he admitted. “When I had my first fight, I was scared. It was the same before my last fight. I wasn’t scared, no, but I was nervous. There are too many responsibilities. There’s big pressure every time. “But this is a good thing when you feel it. If you don’t feel it, you are low, not important. You should feel that fire in yourself and you should then control that fire. You shouldn’t let it burn you.” Currently 14-0 (11) as a pro, Bivol won the WBA lightheavyweight title in November 2017 with a first round knockout of Trent Broadhurst and then successfully defended the belt with a last round knockout of Sullivan Barrera
I WANT TO MAKE A GOOD LIFE FOR MY CHILDREN AND FOR ALL OF MY FAMILY”
I’M A BOXER, I SHOULD BE BETTER THAN LEONARD, TYSON AND ALI”
four months later. Both performances demonstrated the 27-year-old’s power, early and late, as well as his composure and coldness.
More frustrating, though, was his most recent defence, a 12-round decision win against Isaac Chilemba in August. That one went the way most Isaac Chilemba fights tend to go. It was long, it was scrappy, and it was awkward. Bivol, for the first time as a pro, fought not only an opponent but his own impatience.
“It was a difficult fight because he’s a really tricky fighter with good speed and a good left jab,” Bivol conceded. “He moves a lot. It was a really tricky fight. He is one of the most uncomfortable opponents I have faced. But I got a lot of experience and I’m glad for this.”
The knockouts are all well and good, and cultivate the mystique, but it’s experience that ultimately counts. Indeed, it’s an accumulation of experience that will one day help Bivol step up in class, conquer fellow champions, and maybe avoid being tamed the way other so-called beasts invariably get tamed upon meeting someone unmoved by their power and strength.
On the night he whitewashed Chilemba, for example, Bivol saw Sergey Kovalev, his fearsome countryman, get disrobed by the movement and nous of Eleider Alvarez, the Colombian working from a blueprint Andre Ward first established. It was a reminder that experience against various styles – the good, the bad and the ugly – is key.
“It was a surprise,” said Bivol, who had hoped to fight Kovalev if they both came through their August bouts unscathed. “I thought he should be winning that fight. I was about 80 per cent sure of that. When he lost, it was bad news for me. I didn’t expect it.
“We talked about our fight, but he lost, and those plans fell apart. It would have been an interesting fight for people in Russia but also for people all over the world. It would have been a big fight. I think it can still happen in the future. We will see what happens after my next fight [against Jean Pascal on November 17] and after his rematch. I say every time that I want to fight against the best guys and he’s one of the best guys.”
Artur Beterbiev is also one of the best guys in the light-heavyweight division. The IBF champion, unlike Kovalev, is a Russian going up rather than down the hill, and with his breezeblock head, thick beard and chilling power is winning the hearts of boxing fans at an alarming rate.
“He is one of the champions,” said Dmitry, “and I think it will be a good fight. We’re both from Russia and it’s an interesting fight for Russian people. I’m not famous in the world. He’s not famous in the world. But if this fight happens, I will be glad.
“I think we should wait, though. We should have more fights on TV, get more fans, and then this fight will happen eventually.
“Every time I go to the ring, I think I will win. You have to be confident. Of course, if I fight Beterbiev, I think I should be winning.”
As strange as it sounds, Dmitry Bivol’s confidence isn’t an easy thing to detect. Refreshingly, he seems unwilling to use it as a selling point, nor as a tool to frighten opponents or dupe fans. It is, instead, something he deems for personal use only, beneficial only when fighting.
But it’s there, all right. It’s there in Bivol just as it’s there in any high-achieving champion and, that day in London, it required only a mention of boxing heroes to extract from Bivol something he fought hard to contain.
“He’s not a hero for me,” Bivol said of Alexander Povetkin, the veteran heavyweight with whom he had travelled to England. “I just respect him. Ray Leonard isn’t a hero, either, but I really like him. I learn when I watch his fights. I like to watch his fights before my fights and many times it is the same fights. I watch his fights against [Thomas] Hearns, [Marvin] Hagler, [Roberto] Duran – both fights. I like all of those fights.
“But I’m a boxer. I should be better than Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali. I think about that a lot. Maybe I will never be better. Of course, I understand this. But if you want to be the best you should think about being better than everyone else. If you shoot for the stars, maybe you can reach them. Maybe you won’t. Who knows?”
For Bivol, now living in St. Petersburg but often training in Los Angeles, a shortlist of heroes eliminates those with whom he spends little time.
“My father is my hero and comes to every boxing session,” he said. “He is part of my team. He is in the corner. Of course, he’s nervous every time. He once said, ‘Only I know how much pain I feel when my son gets punched. Only me.’
“My mother and my coach are also my heroes. They teach me how to be a boxer and how to be a man. I have learned to be responsible like my father. People who teach me are my heroes. People who are with me all the time.”
Also with Bivol all the time are his two young sons, both under the age of four, whose path into boxing, based on the fact their father started at six, has presumably already been set. Then again, perhaps not.
“I took my older son to hockey section,” he said, “and I don’t even think about boxing. It’s too dangerous.
“When I see other sparring and other boxers, they receive more punches on their head, and I think if my son gets punched in his head I will be nervous. I will probably die early of worry.
“But, of course, they have seen how I do my job. They take my gloves at home and punch each other. It doesn’t matter what I want them to do. They see what I do and I’m sure they will be similar.”
Dmitry Bivol is far too humble to consider himself the hero boxing needs right now. Yet, adhering lessons taught to him by his own father, he’s certainly working on becoming the hero two young boys need.