WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol is wary of any complacency ahead of his fight with Umar Salamov.
The Russian pair will fight on December 11 in Yekaterinburg in their home country. Bivol is arguably the best fighter in the division, in contention with another Russian, Artur Beterbiev.
The undefeated champion is the favourite against Salamov, who has suffered just one loss over 26 fights, but Bivol is taking no chances.
“I know my opponent, I've seen some of his fights,” he said to Oleg Bogatov, reported BoxingScene.com.
“This is a tall guy, a serious and fairly technical boxer. He should have fought for the WBO championship - now I will meet with him. I have been training for several weeks in Krasnodar, and I plan to fly to Yekaterinburg on December 4 or 5. Previously, two sparring partners were working with me, now three are training, and then there will be two again.
“There is someone to train with and there are always spare sparring partners.
"All of [the sparring partners] are our guys who act in a manner similar to that of Salamov. What is Salamov's danger? First, this is boxing, and, second, we have an opponent who also wants to win and who has his own ambitions. It is always better in a fight to first study your opponent."
Bivol had been put forward as a potential candidate to fight Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez ahead of the Mexican’s touted return to 175lbs, but he has since elected to move on further to cruiserweight to take on Ilunga Makabu next May.