Dmitry Bivol passes the easy test; now, the hard work begins

Dmitry Bivol is a boxer's boxer. He's a master technician in the ring, and if you look closely enough, you can almost see the calculations he is making in his head about distance, ring geography, and all the other little nuances of the game that separate good fighters from great ones.

So on Saturday, May 30, while he boxed the head off of a severely overmatched Michael Eifert for 12 rounds, you either fell into one of two categories: hopelessly impressed or hopelessly bored.

Despite being 28 years old, Michael Eifert has only fought 15 career bouts and, before Saturday, had fought only 2 rounds in 3 years since 2023.

So no one was expecting him to really bother the former undisputed light heavyweight champion and the current WBA, IBF and Ring Magazine champion. So after Bivol knocked him down with a check left hook in the first round, some probably thought that we would see an avalanche of combos to end the fight before their beers got warm.

But after more than a year out of the ring, and after back surgery to repair a herniated disc in August, perhaps Bivol wanted to get more work in, because he sleptwalked through the next four rounds.

Jab-cross combinations were the only items on the menu through the first four rounds of the fight, and yet Eifert couldn't muster enough offense for the German to ever even challenge the Russian.

Bivol was fighting back in Russia for the first time since 2021 and the crowd brought out their drums and chants from the opening bell. But by the fourth round, you could feel the crowd draining from 5,000 miles away.

That was until the 5th round, when Bivol's consistent bodywork throughout the fight finally prompted Eifert to reconsider his life decisions. Over the second half of the fight, Bivol punished Eifert with the jab, and his pinpoint accurate hooks snuck around Eifert's guard so much, he was left bashful for much of the fight's second half.

Bivol carried the Eifert for most of the fight, only turning up to try to knock him out in the 11th. All three judges scored all 12 rounds for the champion.

What's next for Dmitry Bivol?

While Dmitry Bivol left no questions about his dominance in the ring against a lesser opponent, there are plenty of questions outside of the ring about his future.

After losing a controversial majority decision to Artur Beterviev in 2024, Bivol avenged that loss with a majority decision win in 2025. This fight was seen as a tune-up for a potential trilogy against Beterviev, one of the hardest pound-for-pound punchers in the world.

Fans also want to see Bivol fight David Benavidez sooner rather than later. But the latest from around the sport suggests that fight isn't in the cards for the immediate future.

But regardless of who he fights next, the sport of boxing is better with Bivol back in the fold. At 35 and coming off of recent back surgery, no one knows how long he will continue to fight.

Fans wanted to see whether Bivol would be back to his old self in this fight, but he never even attempted to get into that gear. So the questions are still there, but now, at least, we can expect to start getting some answers once he faces tougher opponents now that he is back in the ring.

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This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 8:11 PM.