Artur Beterbiev insists he has little interest in a future fight with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Beterbiev on Saturday, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, makes the first defence of his undisputed light-heavyweight title in his rematch with his fellow Russian Dmitry Bivol.
It was in October when the 40 year old recorded his biggest victory in their first fight, via majority decision. Since the confirmation of their rematch, Alvarez has agreed to fight William Scull at super middleweight and, in the event of victory, Terence Crawford, also at 168lbs, later in 2025.
The Mexican has spoken of potentially returning to light heavyweight – he defeated Sergey Kovalev there, before later losing to Bivol – should he defeat both Scull and Crawford, but Beterbiev told Boxing News: “I’m not really interested in him, because when he was the champion in my category, yes, I wanted to fight him, but now he doesn’t have anything in my category.”
David Benavidez is considered a potential alternative, and asked about him, the champion said: “Of course – if he wants the fight. If he’s mandatory, we’ll need to fight.”
He was also asked how different Saturday’s fight feels to their first, which was delayed when he suffered an injury while training, and he responded: “It’s a little bit better [to be training injury-free], yeah.
“Now we know each other a little bit better, than when we fought the first time. It’s helping.
“I wanted to grab all the belts [the first time]. Now I want to defend them. It’s motivating.
“We can say anything, everything, but during the fight, it’s always different.”
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