Dmitry Bivol’s management will file an official protest over his 12-round majority decision loss to Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night. The former WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol’s manager, Vadim Kornilov, plans to protest the 116-112 score from one of the judges, even though many fans also had that score.
Team Bivol choosing to muddy the water won’t change the fight’s outcome. Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) was the better man, the aggressor in the second half of the fight, landed the better shots, and had Bivol on the run during the championship rounds.
When the fight was at stake in rounds 9 through 12, Bivol was on his bike, trying to escape the pressure from Beterbiev. The judge that scored the fight 116-112 obviously noted that Beterbiev was in control during the crucial last crucial championship rounds.
“We’re going to file a protest on Monday. I think the judge has to at least have some kind of responsibility for what he did,” said Bivol’s manager, Vadim Kornilov, to BoxNation.
The reason Bivol lost wasn’t because of the judge, who had it 8-4 for Beterbiev. He didn’t fight hard once he felt Beterbiev’s power in the seventh and was on the retreat from that round on. Whatever fight that Bivol had in him was taken out after he was hit with a storm of shots in the seventh. You could see it. Turning the sound off from the DAZN commentary team helped.
Beterbiev unloading bombs on Bivol, and after that seventh round, it was one-sided in Artur’s favor. Bivol is one of those fighters who loses his courage after getting hit hard and doesn’t want to take any additional risks. We saw that in his fights against Canelo Alvarez, Joe Smith, and Lyndon Arthur. When Bivol gets buzzed, he changes his style and goes into safety-first mode.
“Bivol controlled the fight. Listen, he got buzzed in the fight. He buzzed Artur Beterbiev,” said Eddie Hearn to BoxNation, grumbling about his fighter, Dmitry Bivol’s loss to Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night.
“That was a lifetime’s of work where he should have been walking out of the ring as the undisputed world champion. His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] said, ‘Wrong decision, I’ll do a rematch.’ We should have had an undisputed champion in there.”
Hearn may live to regret steering Bivol into a rematch with Beterbiev because he’s likely to get knocked out in the second fight. Once Bivol loses the rematch, his value to Hearn and his Matchroom company will be worthless. Hearn would be better off campaigning for the Bivol and Canelo Alvarez rematch. That’s the one that he should be focusing on. If Hearn can convince Turki to help him persuade Canelo to fight Bivol again, there’s a lot of money to make in the second fight. That’s what I wouldn’t do.
A blind man could see that Beterbiev had figured out Bivol and would destroy him in the rematch. Beterbiev has figured out Bivol’s game and will break him with pressure the second time around.
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