{"id":760380,"date":"2026-06-25T23:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760380\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:50:18","slug":"dmitry-bivol-to-have-elbow-surgery-july-4-then-plans-to-face-callum-smith-in-next-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760380\/","title":{"rendered":"Dmitry Bivol to have elbow surgery July 4, then plans to face Callum Smith in next fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unified light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol will undergo surgery on his injured left elbow July 4, and will return to fight his WBO top-ranked contender Callum Smith, BoxingScene learned Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The WBO is expected to order Bivol-Smith Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Bivol, 25-1 (12 KOs), through his promoter Matchroom Boxing, has informed the WBO of the plans after Bivol returned from a year\u2013plus absence connected to back surgery and defeated Michael Eifert by unanimous decision May 30.<\/p>\n<p>Bivol\u2019s decision allows him to retain his WBO belt, but disappoints those calling for him to stage a trilogy bout with Russian countryman Artur Beterbiev after they split the first two tightly contested matches.<\/p>\n<p>WBC light-heavyweight champion David Benavidez has also expressed interest in fighting Bivol for the undisputed title.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, England\u2019s Matchroom-promoted former super-middleweight champion Smith, 31-2 (22 KOs), elevates to the title shot after his impressive February 2025 victory over Joshua Buatsi.<\/p>\n<p>The timetable for Bivol\u2019s return will be known following his surgery, an official connected to the situation said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unified light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol will undergo surgery on his injured left elbow July 4, and will return&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,6653,33554,13411,85],"class_list":["post-760380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-callum-smith","tag-dmitry-bivol","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}