Tony Bellew vs Oleksandr Usyk: Dmitry Bivol keen to follow in Ukrainian’s footsteps ahead of his own November fight

Bivol wants to unify the light-heavyweight division once he’s finished with Jean Pascal

WBA light-heavyweight king Dmitry Bivol had declared that he wants to be “like Oleksandr Usyk” ahead of his November showdown with former lineal champion Jean Pascal in November.

Usyk has a huge November fight of his own, and will travel to Manchester to fight Tony Bellew with all of his world cruiserweight titles on the line.

Usyk is the most recent male boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles and won the undisputed championship in his 15th professional fight, which is an all-time boxing record.

Bivol’s 15th professional fight will meanwhile come against Pascal next month, with the Russian outlining his ambition to unify all of the light-heavyweight titles at some point in the future.

“It’s very important for me,” the 27-year-old told Boxing Scene. “It’s every boxer’s dream to be the champion, the unified champion. It’s a big step to dream about. Like (unified cruiserweight champion) Oleksandr Usyk.”

But first Bivol must put his WBA title on the line against Pascal, a dangerous opponent with plenty of big fight experience.

Pascal held held the WBC, IBO, Ring magazine and lineal light-heavyweight titles between 2009 and 2011, with his only defeats coming to Carl Froch, Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovalev.

“Not too long ago, Pascal fought for three world titles and I watched on TV,” Bivol added.

“Now he wants to take my title away, and I am very happy to accept this challenge and look forward to my next title defense on HBO.”