With just a few days until the undisputed light heavyweight championship between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, trainer Marc Ramsey is already excited.
Ramsey, who trains three-belt 175-pound champ Artur Beterbiev, expects a very technical fight against titlist Dmitry Bivol on Saturday. The two dynamos are expected to offer the boxing world a mouthwatering and thrilling encounter in a bout that should surely cement the winner’s Hall of Fame status.
To Ramsey, the fight promises to be a thriller, especially when both fighters have such different styles in the ring.
“It’s a good challenge. He’s a champion first of all,” Ramsey said of Bivol in an interview with Pro Boxing Fans. “He’s very good at what he does, but it’s going to be technical, mechanical and very sharp. What he does, he does it well. But let’s see if he can do some other stuff than what he’s doing right now.
“We have a fighter who can box, and we definitely have a fighter who can fight. Let’s see if the other side can follow through.”
Ramsey recounted how he met Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) at the World Amateur Championship in Chicago in 2007, before bringing the Russian to Montreal for discussions. The Canadian trainer revealed that Beterbiev was already a world amateur champion before Ramsey became his cornerman.
“At that time, it was very hard to approach a Russian fighter for a Canadian promoter, but we had somebody that knew both sides and at one point we reached each other,” Ramsey said. “Physically, he was very gifted already, very strong – but I knew that before he came to my gym the first time.
“I followed him a lot as an amateur fighter, and he was very well educated, technically, from the Russian amateur boxing team. And I just had to work on a couple of little details just to make sure that we have the right pro style.”
The duo has gone on to chalk many successes at light heavyweight, winning Beterbiev’s first title in 2017 and adding further belts two years later, when he recorded a 10-round stoppage of Oleksandr Gvozdyk. On Saturday, Beterbiev faces the toughest test of his career against Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs).
Yet Beterbiev, even at 39, is no slouch himself. He remains in exceptional shape due to a spartan lifestyle, says Ramsey. Still, the trainer refuted claims that Beterbiev had been knocking out and hospitalizing sparring partners.
“When we have sparring partners in Montreal,” Ramsey said, “we try to protect them. We ask them [to spar], like, two or three rounds in a row. We never ask them to go to beat 12 rounds or some stuff like that.
“But Artur, of course, he’s powerful, and he is hurting people. Right now, in the gym, we don’t see any sign of him slowing down – like, his metabolism or even the power or stuff like that. You have to know that Artur has never drunk alcohol in his life. He goes to sleep early every night and he eats well.
“Every single decision that he has made in his life is in direction to his boxing career, and that’s why I believe at that age, he’s still accurate like that.”
Bernard Neequaye is a sports journalist with a specialty in boxing coverage. He wrote a boxing column titled “From The Ringside” in his native Ghana for years. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) at @BernardNeequaye, LinkedIn at Bernard Neequaye and through email at [email protected].
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