‘Now or never’ – Eddie Hearn hints that Canelo Alvarez may fight Gennady Golovkin next rather than taking an immediate rematch with Dmitry Bivol

After suffering only the second loss of his career against Dmitry Bivol, among the first words out of Canelo Alvarez's mouth were calls for a rematch.

Canelo was soundly beaten by Bivol, losing by unanimous decision and being out-landed in every single round according to the punch stats.

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Despite the domination from the Russian, Canelo seemed determined to run it back in the aftermath, saying at the post-fight press conference: "This doesn’t end in this way.

"I’m a very competitive person, I’ve got many years ahead of me and I’m gonna come back stronger.

“We want the rematch and we want to do much better in the rematch."

Bivol has also expressed interest in the rematch, even suggesting that he would be willing to drop down to Canelo's more natural weight of 168 lbs and fight for the undisputed super middleweight titles.

As for Canelo's promoter, Eddie Hearn, while he does not want to deny Bivol the rematch, he also sees the urgency in making a Canelo vs Gennady Golovkin fight as soon as possible, with 'Triple G' now being 40 years old.

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"[Canelo] wants to fight Dmitry Bivol,"; , "its just when he does it.

"We obviously have a lot of conversations in place about the 'Triple G' trilogy, which actually becomes a lot more interesting because I guess that whole unbeatable image of Canelo Alvarez has slipped away after last week and we may then go into the Dmitry Bivol fight.

"One thing for sure is that Canelo is not going to not want another crack at Dmitry Bivol, it's just the order in which we do it.

"It's either 'Triple G' in September or Dmitry Bivol and if it's not Bivol, it will be Bivol after 'Triple G' if Canelo can get through.

"If that's the case we'll give Bivol another fight in October, maybe against the winner of [Buatsi vs Richards] and then we'll see the big rematch at Cinco de Mayo next year.

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"The 'Triple G' fight, it's now or never. For me, Canelo vs 'Triple G' is still the biggest fight in boxing, its the undisputed super middleweight world championship, the first two were epic and I want to see that fight.

"I think if we don't do it now we wont ever do it so thats definitely part of the consideration, but as well, Canelo doesn't want to really wait for Bivol, he wants it now.

"It's mad how boxing works because if Canelo now loses to 'Triple G' or loses to Bivol, he's in big trouble, but a week ago we were saying he's the pound-for-pound number one.

"So, things can change very quickly and there's a lot of pressure on Canelo Alvarez regardless of who he fights next."

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The suggestion was then made that if Golovkin doesn't get the Canelo fight next, he could potentially fight Chris Eubank Jr, but Hearn quickly dismissed the idea.

"Theres some great fights out there for Eubank Jr," Hearn said, "but he's not a guy that these pound-for-pound greats look at and think 'he's the guy to cement my legacy.'

"Eubank's always in good fights, but 'Triple G' wants to fight Canelo and there's a lot of bad blood between those two and that's another reason I want to make the fight."