Who is Dmitry Bivol? Boxing Record, Bio and Background

The Dmitry Bivol boxing record is proof enough of why he is amongst the best fighters in the world right now.

He is the undefeated WBA light heavyweight world champion and is one of only just two people to have ever defeated Saul Canelo Alvarez.

On Saturday night, he faces his latest title defense as he comes up against Englishman Lyndon Arthur in Saudi Arabia.

Ahead of the Day of Reckoning card, we’ve got the Dimitry Bivol bio and everything you need to know about him.

Who Is Dimitry Bivol?

The world class fighter was in Kyrgistan, but represents Russia, after he and his family moved there when he was just 11 years old. 

As a youngster he took up boxing at age six and it would later turn into an extremely impressive career.

On the Dimitriy Bivol bio is the award for the Ring Magazine’s fighter of the year for 2022, in part for beating Canelo.

Dimitry Bivol’s Amateur Career

After starting his boxing journey at a very young age, the Dimitry Bivol boxing record started with 283 amateur bouts.

He won the under 17s World Championships on two occasions, often fighting opponents older than him due to his size.

Bivol won the bronze at the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships in the middleweight division at age 18.

On moving up to the light heavyweight division he had further success, this time at a European level, winning the under 22 European Championships.

He also won the Russian title on two occasions before finally making his way into the paid ranks.

Dimitry Bivol Professional Career

One thing that’s striking about the Dimitry Bivol bio is the fact that he is held in such high esteem within boxing, despite only having 21 fights as a professional fighter so far. 

He won the first six fights of his career by stoppage, from November 2014 to February 2016, fighting in either Russia or the US.

In just his seventh professional bout, Bivol earned himself the WBA interim light heavyweight world title by defeating Felix Valera.

It was the first time the Russian had to rely on the judges’ scorecards to get a victory, and his win was unanimous. 

At the time the WBA had a Super champion and a Regular champion, making Bivol one of three men to hold one of its versions of the world title.

The WBA allowed Regular champion Nathan Cleverly to face Badou Jack, instead of fighting Bivol, with Jack winning the title.

That should have seen Jack face the Russian but the Regular champ chose to vacate the belt in order to go after the WBC title, vacated by former WBA Super champion Andre Ward, who retired. 

Bivol was then upgraded to be the WBA champion, with now just one champion for the oldest of the sanctioning bodies.

He defended the belt on five more occasions before, in October 2019, he was upgraded again to the Super champion. 

Bivol defeated Lenin Castillo days later and continued to defend the belt against Craig Richards and Umar Salamov. 

In 2022, Canelo decided to step up in weight to challenge the light heavyweight world champion for his title.

But it was the unfancied Bivol who came out on top, winning 115-113 on all of the judges’ scorecards, with most spectators believing those scores weren’t wide enough.

In November of that year, the orthodox boxer defeated Gilberto Ramirez, also by unanimous decision.

That win took the Dimitry Bivol boxing record to 21-0 with 11 wins by way of knockout and 10 victories by decision. 

Dimitry Bivol Bio

As well as the Dimitry Bivol boxing record, there are also some interesting moments in his career lately.

He was expecting to meet Canelo in a rematch earlier this year but when plans fell through it left him without a fight until this weekend.

Bivol had mentioned dropping down in weight to allow him to fight for the Mexican’s titles at super middleweight, but another meeting in the 200lbs division is more likely.

The 33-year-old is currently ranked fifth in the pound-for-pound rankings by Ring magazine, behind only Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue, Oleksandr Usyk and Canelo.

Despite that, he isn’t the Russian with the most gold in his own division currently, with Artur Beterbiev currently holding the WBC, IBF and WBO versions of the light heavyweight title.

Should he defeat Arthur on Saturday night, when he’ll be a huge favorite, then he’s likely to go after the chance to be the undisputed champion at the weight in the future. 

He hasn’t knocked out an opponent in the past five and a half years, but recently had surgery on his hand, which may allow him to unleash more power without fear of pain.