Dmitry Bivol shocked the world by handing the world’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, Canelo Alvarez, his first loss in nine years to defend the WBA light heavyweight title on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Bivol (20-0, 11 knockouts) won by unanimous decision, using a strong jab, sound footwork and constant pressure on Alvarez, who had not lost since Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat him in September 2013.

Judges Tim Cheatham, Dave Moretti and Steve Weisfeld all scored it 115-113 for Bivol. All three scorecards were identical, giving Alvarez the first four rounds, Bivol the next four, Alvarez the ninth and Bivol the 10th, 11th and 12th.

The judges had Bivol winning seven of the last eight rounds.

The moment Dmitry Bivol won the biggest fight of his career 👏

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Coming off a historical victory last November in becoming the first undisputed super middleweight champion, Alvarez (57-2-2, 39 KOs) could not get on track against the 31-year-old Russian.

As early as the third, Alvarez’s face was marked up and red. In the sixth round, Bivol’s left eye was swelling from Alvarez right uppercuts. But Bivol did a fine job through the first half of the fight keeping Alvarez away with the jab.

Through six rounds, Bivol outlanded Alvarez 71-40. Punch stats showed Alvarez punched in single digits each of the first six rounds. Although Alvarez was landing the heavier punches.

Through nine rounds, Bivol outlanded Alvarez 110-61.

Bivol landed double-digit punches in every round but the 10th, while Alvarez could only land double-digit punches in only the ninth and 11th rounds.

Bivol almost doubled Canelo’s punch output, 152/710 (21.4%) to 84/495 (17%).

Doug Fischer will be sending the writeup for the main event shortly.

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on twitter @JSantoliquito.

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