WBA orders purse bid for Badou Jack vs. Dmiry Bivol

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: WBA World light heavyweight champion Badou Jack and #1 WBA Dmitry Bivolv has been ordered by the World Boxing Association to go to a purse bid later this month on September 25, according to Fight News.

This isn’t all that surprising, as the WBA had already ordered negotiations to begin between the former WBA 175 lb. champion Nathan Cleverly and Bivol before the British fighter opted to steer around the negotiations and face Jack, 33, instead on August 26 on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor event.

The WBA let Cleverly take the fight with Jack (22-1-2, 13 KOs), which he lost badly by a 5th round knockout at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In hindsight, Cleverly might have been better off facing the 26-year-old Bivol. That probably would have been a worse outcome for Cleverly, because the Russian Bivol appears to be a bigger puncher than Jack. But now that Cleverly is no longer the WBA champion, it’s now on Jack to have to face Bivol.

Jack was recently making noises about wanting to fight a unification match against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson. Nothing has come of that yet despite Stevenson saying that he would be interested in facing Jack.

It could be that Stevenson wasn’t really serious about wanting to face Jack. Fighting Stevenson would at least have given Jack a good payday. It’s a fight that Stevenson would probably win by knockout. But if Jack is going to get beaten by Stevenson or Bivol, it would be better if he lost to Stevenson. The money would be better fighting him.

As good as Jack looked in beating Cleverly, he still might not be cut out for the 175-lb. division. There are too many talented younger fighters with big power that would give him problems like Bivolv and Oleksandr Gvozdyk. There are also some mature guys like Artur Beterbiev, Eleider Alvarez and Sullivan Barrera that would be a real handful for Badou.

Jack moved up in weight from the super middleweight division after fighting to a 12 round draw against James DeGale on January 14. That was the second consecutive draw for Jack. His previous fight against Lucian Bute was scored a draw as well. However, it was overturned and ruled a 12 round disqualification victory for Jack after Bute tested position for a banned substance Ostarine. Jack struggled with Bute’ workl rate in that fight.

Bivol has put together 4 good wins in the last year in beating Cedric Agnew, Samuel Clarkson, Robert Berridge and Felix Valera. Bivol appears to be getting better and better with each fight. He’s knocked out his last 3 opponents.