Dmitry Bivol's first visit to a boxing gym was enough for the future 175lb world champion to fall in love with the sport and quit karate. At the time he was only 5 years old.
"In the 90s I watched a lot of popular Jackie Chan or Jean Claude Van Damme movies and I wanted to fight like them, I asked my family to send me to karate and they took me, but after a few months, they took me to boxing. And I fell in love. I fell in love with boxing because boxing was more popular and they had more competitions... plus I like fighting with my hands a lot more," said Bivol who is now 31 years old.
Bivol is the current WBA world light heavyweight champion and this Saturday will be challenged by the Mexican and pound-for-pound king, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, in a fight that will be broadcast worldwide by DAZN (except Mexico).
For Bivol, being able to face arguably boxing's best fighter currently is a challenge that he has been craving for years.
"I'm confident because I'm one of the best light heavyweights, if you don't trust your skills, you'll never win you won't achieve anything. You have to trust your skills without talking too much about how great you are, just believe in yourself," Biovl told a media roundtable following his arrival in Las Vegas.
"Of course I want to be undisputed champion, Canelo is undisputed and that's why I respect him too. A good fighter has to have a good dream like being undisputed, this is also my dream, of course I want all the titles, but right now I only think about my title.
"I won't have much respect for him (Canelo). I respect him as my last opponent, he has achieved too much. He hits hard, but he's my rival. I respect him, but he's my enemy.
"I'm glad, I have a great journey in boxing, because I remember since I was five years old in boxing and now I'm in Las Vegas and now I'm going to fight here. I'm glad.
I think boxing from so young was not so good for me, because when I graduated I was told that the ideal age to start was 11-12 years old because kids just have fun, but I had fun in the gym too. I remember myself as a kid, boxing and now everything is going to pay off."